


Hideout ~ Will x OC

by MoodstoneEyes



Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Death, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gore, Hawkins Lab, Hawkins Lab bashing, Humor, Lemons, Paranormal, Romance, Sasha will do anything for Will, Testing - Freeform, The Upside Down, Troy and James bashing, Will is not gay, Will is scared to death of the Upside Down, alchohol abuse, chainsaw, hating on Mike, joke writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 10:31:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 50,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16972917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoodstoneEyes/pseuds/MoodstoneEyes
Summary: It's been a few months after the infamous attack of the demogorgon on the small town of Hawkins, and Will has allowed himself to think that things have gone back to normal. That is, until one night when he is going home through Mirkwood, he meets a certain rebellious demogorgon by the name of Sasha, who has waged war against Hawkins Lab. Then he realizes, there are still stranger things...(Also this is kind of a spoof/joke writing so it will be weird. Enjoy ;) )





	1. The Meeting in Mirkwood

* * *

_Sasha's pov_

I was covered in blood.

The alarm sirens of Hawkins Lab still wailed faintly in the distance, growing dimmer as I put distance between me and the lab. I hissed in amusement. What a bunch of dodos!

For being so evil and high tech and do-tests-on-children, the people at Hawkins Lab really weren't that smart. They'd just shoot at you with machine guns until they ran out of bullets, which worked just fine- if you didn't have bulletproof skin. Oh, right- I didn't mention that I'm a demogorgon, although not like the first one that terrorized Hawkins(I'm fluent in Russian and he's not) I'm not controlled by a hive mind. I rebelled against that a long time ago. If I had decided to let the hive mind control me, I would have led a pretty dull life of abducting and killing every human I could find so the Shadow Monster would have hosts for his army. 

Pffft. Good luck, Smoky. 

Well yes, I do kill humans, but not random ones. Mostly, they're fine. They don't cause trouble- usually- and I get a pretty good kick out of jump scaring them when they go into the woods at night. So I really don't have anything against them, but it's the Hawkins Lab people who are the dicks. Why do I have a problem with them in particular? It's just... where do I begin? They do tests on innocent children, they lie like weasels, kill people who get in the way, they screw around with my kind and the dimension I come from and then act like it's my fault when someone gets abducted. I know it's not my business to care, but at least I have a sense of right and wrong. 

I slowed down to a walk as I crossed a quiet road and into the woods, shifting my grip on my chainsaw. Yes, I use a chainsaw for the Hawkins Lab baddie killing sprees. It's actually pretty effective and fun too. Better than a machine gun. 

I thought I was home free, as I stalked triumphantly through the dark, misty forest. Until I heard a crack behind me.

_Will's pov_

I turned my bike off the road, and dipped into the woods. Mirkwood loomed before me, dark and foggy. It had been several months since the apocalypse of the Upside Down, and the demogorgon was long dead, so by now it was pretty safe to go through Mirkwood at night. All you ever encountered there were squirrels, owls and the odd raccoon. A little ways in, I got off my bike, since the terrain was bumpy and sketchy, and I didn't want to wipe out. Right then, I received the fright of my life. I'm honestly not sure which of us was more surprised, me or the demogorgon that stood on the side of the path. I knew it wasn't the same one from last year, since this one was shorter, and dark greyish brown with lighter skin on its chest and the insides of its arms and legs. And the one from last year definitely didn't carry a chainsaw.

My arms and legs shook like branches in an earthquake, feeling like cooked spaghetti. I was frozen in utter terror, and my lungs seemed to have forgotten how to work. 

" _Privetik,_ " the monster said, lowering the chainsaw. I couldn't have been surprised more after hearing it speak. 

"W-what?" I replied. It was a bright reaction, but I was lost for words. 

"Oh. That's Russian for 'hi'," the voice was feminine, and had a slight foreign accent.

You know what? I'm not even gonna ask where the demogorgon learned Russian.

"Uh, hi?" I replied, my terror ebbing when I saw she wasn't going to butcher me, at least not at this second. 

"You look like you've seen Satan's ghost," she remarked, as I probably was as nervy and pale as one from my fright. 

"You kind of surprised me," I replied warily.

 "I tend to do that," the demogorgon shrugged, causing some of the blood that was spattered on her to drip to the ground. Not encouraging. 

"Can I just ask why you have a chainsaw?" I asked, still hesitant and skeptical.

"I just got back from a killing spree at Hawkins Lab," she replied, nonchalantly, as though this were the average person's ideal way of having fun. 

I felt a wave of nausea. That was about as much as I could take in one night of the gore. 

"I know what you're thinking," she said, "but I'm actually doing you a favor."

"By killing people?"

"The thing is, Hawkins Lab is not on your side. They do tests on young, innocent children, kill people out of cold blood, and they wanted to leave you in the Upside Down so they could observe how the vine grew in you. Trust me- you want as few of those guys around as possible, and you seem like a pretty nice kid, so I won't lop off your head."

I gulped. I felt my grip loosen on the bike handles, blood returning to my hands. "Do you have a name?"

"Yes. It's Sasha," Sasha replied. 

"Mine's Will. Er, nice to meet you."

"I should probably go now," my new acquaintance announced. "I'm super tired."

"Okay then. Bye."

"See you later, Will," Sasha replied, and with that opened a portal to the Upside Down and stepped through, closing it behind her. 


	2. Sasha

_Will's pov_

For some reason I didn't tell mom, or even Johnathan, about my trip through the woods. Normally, telling my mom and any other family member or friend that I had nearly rode my bike into a chainsaw weilding Russian demogorgon that had just had a killing spree at Hawkins Lab would  have been the first thing I would have done after getting home. Somehow though, I didn't feel like it. Maybe because mom would flip the fuck out and never let me go in Mirkwood again, even though we practically live in there. Believe it or not, I wasn't as threatened by Sasha, even though when I met her she was drenched in blood and holding a chainsaw. The fact that she hadn't cut my head off upon sight, and even claimed to be mass killing the scientists from Hawkins Lab for mine and others' benefit sort of reasured me, even though Sasha was probably a psychopath. 

Unfortunantly for my secrecy, mom noticed how quiet and out of it I was in the morning.

"Sleep okay?" Joyce inquired, and I nodded.

"You seem quiet today," she noted. "Are you feeling well? Are you still remembering the trauma from- you know, last year?"

"No, I just don't feel like talking is all," I replied, and with that I grabbed my backpack and left for school before Joyce could probe me anymore.

_Sasha's pov_

I watched Will quietly from the top of the slope, overlooking the section of road Will was riding down.

Alright, I admit it- I was being a stalker. But the kid kind of caught my attention. Sure I had conversations with other humans in the past, but after we parted ways, I knew that no one would believe them if they said that they had spoken to an interdimensional monster, and if they did, they couldn't find me. But Will was different, although I didn't quite know why, and it was probably because he had experience with the Upside Down, so we had that relatability going. 

After watching his progress for a ways, I deduced that he was going to the school, which I could access via a shortcut through the woods. I climbed down from the slope, and took off sprinting. I reached the school a minute or two before the first bell. I may spend a lot of time sleeping, but I can be a track star when I want to be. 

When I saw that the coast was clear and there were few enough people that I could venture onto the campus, I did not see Will outside or in any of the classrooms through the windows, and I began to circle the school carefully, peering in carefully until I saw him in a classroom that looked sort of like a science lab, with microscopes and heat lamps. I could see Will sitting at a desk among a bunch of other kids, transfixed by what the teacher was presenting. I observed quietly, as I was still unnoticed. The teacher appeared to be using a projector to show a diagram of a human brain, which I guess could be pretty interesting, but I already knew what that looked like from personal experience. I left, returning to the Upside Down, where I have various hidden bunkers, usually hidden under crumbling buildings. I went to the nearest bunker, where I went down a corridor a ways before arriving in the main room, where I flopped down on the mattress I had dragged in, and fell asleep.

_Will's pov_

As I turned my bike carefully into Mirkwood, I found myself scanning my surroundings carefully. I usually didn't do that, even after my abduction and before I met Sasha, and I had become nervy and edgy by then. This time, I actively looked for her before entering the woods. I guess I didn't want to find myself on the end of her chainsaw, but I saw no sign of her. 

"Hi, Will."

I heard a familiar voice, and it startled me so bad, I nearly jumped off my bike. I stopped and looked in the direction of the voice, which came from a tree. Then her long, dark form crept down the tree, headfirst, before she peeled away from it and flipped over on her feet. Sasha did not have her chainsaw, and wasn't covered in blood. 

"Hello Sasha," I replied, slightly unsteadily. "I see you haven't killed anyone yet tonight."

"Yes, I don't do that every night. If that were so, Hawkins Lab would have caught me by then. I like to keep my attacks inconsistent, so they can't pick up a pattern and be prepared," Sasha explained.

"That's smart," I put the kickstand down on my bike. 

"I guess. It hasn't been enough to get to the bigwig asshats like that Brenner guy though. People like him are under the highest protection, and they're also the most destructive, evil assholes."

"So, what do you usually do, when you're not going on killing sprees?" I asked Sasha as she leaned against a tree.

"Oh, not much," she replied. "I just sleep a ton, and I like to jump scare people who come in the woods. You should try it. It's fun. The reactions are priceless."

The corners of my mouth twitched with amusement. "Maybe sometime."

"So what do you do when you're not biking through the woods at night?" Sasha replied.

"I hang with my friends, and we got to the Arcade, or play Dungeons & Dragons. It's this really fun board game," I explained. "I'm at school a lot too. My favorite class is science. You learn some pretty cool stuff," I explained.

"Sounds nice. Doesn't sound like you're a potato like me," Sasha said, sarcastically. 

We ended up talking about stuff I had learned in science class for I don't know how long, until I started feeling tired, and I realized how much time must've been passing. I told Sasha that I had better go home, and she agreed.

"Meet me here tomorrow," I said, out of nowhere, and it surprised me as much as it did her. 

"Alright," she agreed, "I will if I can, but no guarantees made. See you soon!"

We exchanged goodbyes, and I went home. I had no idea what was in store next...


	3. Welcome to the Upside Down

_Will's pov_

The next night Sasha was not at the meeting spot at the appointed time. I figured she was just still asleep or had misjudged the time, so I waited a while, looking for her to pop out of a portal. Then I got super cold, so I couldn't feel my toes, so I went home.

Sasha wasn't there the next day, or the next. I began to get worried about her. She seemed to be having a hell of a nap. Perhaps Hawkins Lab had captured her and killed her. Oh shit. What if that happened? Fear and worry flooded through me, despite myself. Honestly, I kind of liked her, as a friend of course, even though she had a fetish for going on massacres in the Lab by aid of a chainsaw, and getting covered in blood, but she seemed to genuinely care about me, as explained by the purposes of the killings at the Lab. 

The thought distracted me throughout the school day on Friday, though I was able to concentrate more in science. Should I try to get her out of Hawkins Lab? I should return her favor of battling the Lab, but that would be impossible. As soon as they saw me they would have me handcuffed and thrown in a white room, where they would do tests on me for the rest of eternity. Besides, they might not even have Sasha, and if they had captured her, they would have killed her already.

I was nearly scared shitless when Mrs Fletcher, my history teacher, slapped my desk with her ruler and told me to wake up and smell the coffee. 

Then that evening, things changed, for better or for worse. 

I heard a large amount of cars up ahead, along with people yelling incoherently in the woods when I returned from playing D&D at Mike's. Curious, I proceeded into the woods on my usual path. The flashlights began to get closer, along with the yelling. Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from my bike and into the shadow of a tree. Without seeing, I knew it was Sasha. 

"Sasha?" I whispered, confused. "Why weren't you there?"

"I'll explain later," she replied, terror in her voice, and I could feel her heart pounding against my shoulder through her chest. "Right now, we both have to go, or we're both dead."

I felt the tree cave in, becoming flexible and enveloping us, just as the beam of the flashlight landed on us. Then a chilly draft hit me, and I realized that I had been hugging Sasha tightly as we had gone through the portal. It crunched shut behind us, and I surveyed the dark, black vine choked and foggy blueish version of Mirkwood. Sasha waved her hand in a 'voila' gesture at Mirkwood. 

"Welcome to the Upside Down."


	4. On the run

_Sasha's pov_

I felt at home and safe as I walked through the Upside Down, but Will looked nervous and scared. He kept glancing around like he was expecting something to jump out at him. 

Finally he asked, "why can't we just go back to my house through the Upside Down? This isn't the way back, and I think we've lost them."

"Because we haven't," I replied. "Those people know where I have gone, and they have a portal of their own that they can use to get to the Upside Down, and no, we haven't lost them."

I saw a flash of black and grey to my side, and I turned, knowing it was my chainsaw, which I quickly stashed in the Right Side Up when I got chased. I continued on, much to Will's confusion, as we didn't seem have a general destination, but I knew where we were going.

Over time, I had acquired several bunkers, which were under and even within buildings in the Upside Down that had become dilapidated and had imploded. So far, none of them had been discovered by Hawkins Lab, due to them being hid so well and the Lab probably wouldn't think to check under a crumbled building. I circled it, until I found a large piece of rubble with a long scar on it with a dash on the end, so it looked like a long T. I had put that  mark on the rock to signal that it covered the bunker entrance. It was descreet, but it wasn't hard to find, if you knew what to look for, and Hawkins Lab didn't. 

Will's eyes widened so that they looked identical to owl eyes when he saw me drag the rock aside, and reveal a dark tunnel into the bunker. 

"And _this_ is why Hawkins Lab will never catch me," I explained, standing aside and gesturing for Will to enter. "After you."

"That is damn cool... and kind of creepy," was his reaction before entering, and I pulled the rock back over the entrance. 

"Um, Sasha?" Will asked.

"Um, Will?"

"It's kind of completely dark in here and I can't see shit, and not that I'm hating on your species, cause you're one of the coolest people I've met, but you're a demogorgon, and I'm about to have a panic attack."

"Oh. Hold on a sec."

I reached over his head, which I could see pretty well, even though it was apparently completely dark, and turned on a flashlight that I had secured to the wall, just in case. "Better?"

"Thank you so much, Sasha. That dramatically improved my mental state."

The torch cast a lot of light, and the corridor wasn't all that long, even with some twists and turns, so we soon arrived in the main part of the bunker, and I turned on some of the wall torches in there so Will wouldn't have a heart attack, and went back up to turn off the tunnel light to save battery. 

"Holy mother of Jesus Christ, what kind of shit are you doing when you're not sleeping or going on killing sprees?" Will whispered, gazing around the bunker, probably at stuff that I had stolen from the deserted ammo store in the Upside Down, or whatever else that I had stolen. 

"It's... just in case something happens, if you put it that way," I explained. "The thing is, in the Upside Down, you kind of have free run of the place, so I thought I would stock up, just in case I loose my chainsaw or something."  
"Uh huh..." Will nodded, still feasting his eyes on a pyramid of graffiti spray paint cans that rested against one wall. I knew sure as hell he wanted to use them, even though he put on an innocent, sweet nature.  
There were several more smaller rooms coming out of the main bunker, that had more ammunition, weapons, spray paint, and other stuff that I had swiped from public places in the Upside Down, that Will investigated with insatiable curiosity.  
A few minutes after his sight seeing, Will stifled a yawn. "Now I see how you feel- I'm tired as fuck."  
I dragged a spare mattress out of one of the smaller rooms, grabbing blankets and a pillow on a second trip.  
"Will this do?"  
Will nodded drunkenly.  
"I'm sorry that you can't go back to your dimension," I apologized, "but Hawkins Lab could be right outside the bunker for all we know, and it would be to dangerous anyways. Whatever happens, you must never let them catch you. I've seen the stuff that they do to kids, and it's disgusting, and you know the stuff that I take a fancy doing."  
Will nodded again, looking unsettled again. He returned to settling in to his makeshift bed.  
"Would you feel safer if I moved into another room?" I offered, ready to move my bed, since he still looked jumpy and shaken.  
"No, it's fine if you stay," Will replied, contradictory to my assumption. "Thanks so much for helping me and all, Sasha."  
"I'm happy to help. I would hate for the Lab to catch you and torture you, like some of their subjects," I replied.  
He finished with his bed and got in. I turned off one of the flashlights so the light wouldn't distract us from sleeping. Will was asleep by the time I turned off the light.

_Will's pov_

Sometime in the middle of the night, I awakened with a start. I forgot where I was for a second, but then I remembered what had happened that evening. I could feel my more primordial instincts and natures kicking in, as my science teacher, Mr Clarke, explained happened when put in a less domesticated and more dangerous and dire habitat, such as the Upside Down. One of the symptoms would be sleeping lightly and waking up often, until I got used to my new living space.

 I turned my head and observed Sasha, who definitely wasn't having any problems sleeping. My eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light, and I could see that she was lying motionless on her mattress, her front down but her head was turned in my direction. I couldn't even hear her breathing, even though it was dead quiet, or see anything but the slightest rise and fall of her sides. She appeared to be either dead or in a coma, probably the latter. Or she was just being a major creep by lying motionless and staring at me, but I couldn't tell since she didn't really have a face. I returned her possible stare, watching closely her slight, slow breaths. My eyes wandered. Not that it meant anything, but Sasha was kind of cute when she was asleep, and not tense and alert, either from the stress of killing off Hawkins Lab or avoiding getting killed by them.

 I caught myself staring at her. Staring for too long. I buried my head in my pillow and pulled up my blankets.


	5. A Day in Town

_Will's pov_

I woke up several times during the night, due to my instinctive fear of the Upside Down. Sasha had barely moved between my intervals, which was kind of odd, since most people move around in their sleep, but I was just happy that I didn't wake up to find her standing over me about to tear my heart out or buzz my head off with her chainsaw, but knowing her as much as I did, that was highly unlikely. 

I awakened again when I heard her get up. I blearily lifted my head and blinked to get used to opening my eyes. Sasha left the room for a minute and returned holding several objects.

"Hey, is it morning?" I asked her, and she looked up at me.

"I guess, for us, but it's technically night in the Upside Down, though it doesn't really visibly change," she replied.

"Do you ever like, get bored hanging around down here?" I asked, looking around. The stuff that she had hoarded was pretty interesting after you got it, but after a while, you could get used to it, and I had a feeling that Sasha had been at this hiding-in-bunkers thing for more than a while.

"No, I don't," Sasha replied. "I don't even stay in here."

"But what about the Lab? Didn't you say they would catch us?"

Sasha cussed in Russian. "Those nasty little son-of-a-demobitches wouldn't dare poke their noses out of their precious Lab and get involved in stuff in daylight hours in the Right Side Up, although they're probably hiding around in the woods and around town in disguise, so it's not safe to go back yet, but they tend to stay out of the Upside Down during the night. The Mind Flayer is more active then."

"What's the Mind Flayer?" I asked.

"Oh. You could call him the hive mind. He was controlling the demogorgon that attacked your town, and basically the entire ecosystem of the Upside Down, all with his mind. You've seen what a great sense of style he has for his domain."

"And the Mind Flayer doesn't control you?"

She scoffed. "Hell no. That's the last thing that would happen to me. When I was born, the Mind Flayer wasn't as strongly connected to me, as he was more diverted by say, controlling the demogorgon... quite the unlucky guy. But hey, it works for me."

"Well, I'm happy the Mind Flayer doesn't control you," I concluded. "Um, why do you have spray paint?"

"You'll see. Come outside."

Sasha lead the way out of the bunker, moving the rock away just enough to peer out and check her surroundings before cautiously moving the rock completely aside and leaving. A gust of cold air greeted me as I left, as a considerable amount of heat had collected in the bunker. We scanned the area again for any signs of Hawkins Lab.

We continued into town, or what had been the town. I recognized the convenience store that my mom worked in, but sinister black vines snaked up the walls, and the windows were broken, accompanied by some scattered graffiti. As we progressed, I noticed the surprising amount of graffiti on the buildings, and some of it looked fairly recent, and some of it was spray painted over the ever present black tendrils. 

We stopped at a building that had no marks on it, where the street art had become less apparent. Sasha picked up a rock and pegged it at one of the windows, taking the whole thing out. She then tossed me a can of graffiti. 

"That is what I do when I'm bored. Vandalism is a big thing in the Upside Down, since there isn't really anyone to stop you."

I thought back to the graffitied buildings, probably all Sasha's work. I couldn't hold back a large grin. I had always wanted to do this stuff, but I had to put on a good look.

"Oh hell yes."

To start off my new hobby, spray painted, "Will was here" in bold black letters on one of the walls. I then broke out one of the front windows to raid the inside, while Sasha redid the design on the outside. It appeared to be a small hardware store, and I painted some stuff on the wall before moving back to the cash register and stuffing as much money as I could into my pants and coat pocket, regretting that I didn't bring a backpack for more. After I had swiped as much money as I could carry, I got a coke from the drink freezer by the door, and continued to explore the building, busting stuff up, adding graffiti to the walls and generally having a good time.

After a while, I went out to see what Sasha was doing. I found that she had drawn a very detailed fist giving the middle finger beside the words "fuck u Hawkins Lab", and she had moved farther down the wall, writing something in Russian.

"Damn, you could get an A+ in art  at my school... if you're style wasn't so- what's that word my grandmother always uses? Vulgar?" I said, observing the art.

Sasha paused. "I like my art vulgar. If your school won't accept my style, they can go suck that middle finger."

I laughed. "This is why you're cool."

"Why thanks," she said. "This is why I like you. You're the only person I can relate to."

We moved on to several more buildings, adding broken windows and obscene doodles and notes to their appearance, until all their cans ran out. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I assumed it was pretty late in the day in the Right Side Up, as Sasha and I returned to the bunker.


	6. The Secret

_Joyce's pov_

"Hello? This is Joyce Byers. Can I get Hopper on the line?"

There was a moment of silence, during which I hovered by the telephone set, the phone close to my ear. Johnathan stood in the living room, watching with a worried look.

"Yes?" I heard Hopper's somewhat annoyed voice.

"Good morning, Hop. It's me, Joyce, again. Remember last year when Will went missing? Well guess what? He wasn't home this morning, and I assume he didn't come home."

"Are you sure, Joyce? What if he's just staying over at a friend's house and didn't tell you, or he's finally playing hooky on you?" Hopper replied, but he sounded rather hesitant. 

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "I've already asked all his friends, and he would have told me if he was staying over, and for the last time, he's not that kind of kid."

"All right, fine," Hopper agreed begrudgingly. "I'll come over and check it out as soon as possible."

I hung up the phone.

"What did he say?" Johnathan asked.

"He's coming over as soon as possible. Now that he knows that this is serious, Hop's taking his job seriously."

Just then there was a knock on the door, startling us. I was surprised, and I wondered who it could be. I opened up to find a man standing on the porch, dressed similar to a cop, but I knew he was anything but a cop.

"What the hell do you want?" I snarled at the Hawkins Lab agent. "Are you the one who kidnapped my son?"

The agent shook his head. "No Mrs Byers, but I'm afraid that what I'm visiting you about concerns your son Will, and past occurrences that seem to have... reoccurred."

I was possessed by curiosity, oblivious to how he made himself comfortable by sitting down at the table and motioning for me to take a seat.

"Go on..."

"Mrs Byers, I don't think that you're aware of this, but there is a monster inhabiting the area around your property."

Shock and fear coursed through me like I had been electrocuted. "L-like the monster from last year?"

The agent nodded. "Yes, and it has been terrorizing the Lab- it has brutally massacred many of our men. I'm sorry to say this, but it is most likely that it has taken your son. The coincidences are too high- last night we followed it to where Cornwallis and Kerney meet, and as I understand Will takes that route home, and he's been abducted before by the same creature in the exact same fashion."

I stared at the man in horror and shock, trying to process what had happened. My son. Abducted for the second time to that living nightmare of a dimension, and almost certainly dead. There would be no hideout for him to escape the monster.  
"Are you absolutely sure he's dead?" I asked hesitantly in optimism. "When the monster from last year was abducting people, I noticed that it wasn't even killing its victims, at least not directly, and Will survived."  
"I'm quite convinced he's dead," the agent replied gravely. "This monster means to kill, and only kill; not to reproduce, nurture or expand its dimension, or any other shenanigans."  
My heart plummeted to the floor, breaking like a dropped glass. My son was certainly dead. This agent was feeding me negative information, but I was believing it, even though it wasn't a good idea to trust Hawkins Lab to tell the truth, or at least the whole truth.   
"There is still a possibility that he is alive though. The monster seems to have only been targeting the Lab, and there have been no reports of people getting attacked outside of it, or of it even being seen," the agent's one positive piece of information lifted my spirit just a little. There was still hope. "And right now, we are doing everything we can. Until this monster is caught, tested, and annihilated, and Will is possibly found, you and your older son are to vacate the house. For your safety."

 _Sasha's_ _pov_

After Will and I had returned from our fun in the wasteland town, we wound down our energy levels quickly. Will lay quietly on his mattress, fiddling with a watch that he had stolen from one of the stores we had busted up. The ornate, dark yellow tone of the flashlight light in the main bunker flickered once, causing Will to flinch, but he otherwise was distracted from the watch. The silence was becoming awkward and unnerving.  
"So, what's it like in the Right Side Up?" I finally asked.  
"It's nice, I guess. Better than the Upside Down, no offense," Will replied, glancing up from his watch. "Our house isn't that posh. I have a single mom who works two jobs, along with saving me from other dimensions. Most kids say this about their parents, but she's the best mom in the world."  
"She sounds super cool. You're lucky to have a mom like that." I replied. "I don't even have a mom, or parents for that matter. It's not a big thing in the Upside Down."  
"Oh. I'm sorry about that. At least that means you don't have a dad like mine. He's kind of the opposite of my mom. They're divorced though, thank goodness."   
"I suppose you're right. I guess the Shadow Monster was the closest I had to a father, but he just wanted to use me." I paused for a long moment, hoping Will didn't think I was being intrusive, but I wasn't the best conversationalist. My previous lifestyle kind of went against that. "You have friends at your school or something too though, if I know correctly. What are they like?" I finally asked.  
Will didn't seem perturbed or peeved by my inquiries on his life as he replied, so I took it I was doing it correctly.

"I have three really good friends. We've been together since we were little kids," he said. "We play this roleplay game called Dungeons & Dragons almost every day, and we kind of got drawn to each other because of that interest. There's Lucas, and he can come off as rude and impetuous, but he's a good friend. Dustin is a science whore, and he's really funny, but he gets picked on because he has a tooth deformity. And then there's Mike..."

Will paused for a long moment. I observed how his expressions varied, first a strange sort of dreamy look, then deep sadness, and then he put on a hard poker face. 

"Mike's my... best friend. I feel like he's an even greater friend than that. He's the leader of the party, and he's probably the smartest of us all, except for maybe Eleven, from what he's told me. I haven't actually met her, but Mike says that she had escaped from Hawkins Lab, and they found her in the woods. She saved their asses a ton, and helped find me, and she had... powers. Her main one was she could move stuff with her mind. She's dead now, as far as I know."

"Sorry about that. She sounds like a really cool person. You have any other friends?"

Will shook his head. "Not really, except for my science teacher. We're not very appreciated at school. People bully us sometimes, especially Troy and James. Now people call me Zombie Boy behind my back every day, as if I don't hear it every time," Will scowled, looking back down at his watch. 

"What if that's just their way of recognizing that you're alive?" I suggested. "Surviving a week in the Upside Down is a big feat, though I'm one to talk, but only the smart and the tough can pull it off. Maybe they're jealous, because they know that they aren't as smart as you are, and they couldn't earn the name 'Zombie Boy'."

The corners of Will's mouth twitched in a small smile, and he glanced up at me. "I never thought of it that way, I guess. Have you ever, like- been bullied? You seem to know about it."

I thought before replying. "I guess, but it wasn't really bullying. It was just torture. And testing. Hawkins Lab found me when they were exploring the Upside Down, when I was much younger. I didn't look like what I look like now, and I was much smaller, so they didn't know what they were bringing upon themselves. Every day was spent being put in weird situations, torment, having them inject every drug imaginable into me just to see what it would do to me. Occasionally I would see children walking past outside, in the hallways, always with armed guards. Some were blindfolded or restrained, and some were being dragged away screaming and struggling. I think they were like Eleven. Every day was torture, until I made a portal into the Upside Down and escaped. Since then, I've had a vendetta against them for what they've done."

Will was silently for a long time. "Now I see why you're this way... do you think you might have seen Eleven?"

"I don't think so, it was hard to differ. They all had Lab gowns and most had shaved heads," I replied.

Will wormed deeper into his pillows. "I wonder how Mom is doing. She's probably torn apart the house. I wish I didn't have to leave her again."

"I know," I agreed. "I'll see if I can get you back into the Right Side Up, but chances will be slim. They are dead serious about tracking me down, and if they catch you, the more lab rats the better. By now, your family probably isn't at their house. Hawkins Lab would have removed them so they could properly ransack the area for us."

"Have you ever loved anyone?" Will asked, out of nowhere. 

I considered for a moment before replying. "No, not really. It's kind of lonely and devoid of anyone else here, except for some pretty antisocial someones, and other than that, I've been in the Right Side Up with you-know-who."(Harry Potter reference) 

"Please don't ever tell Mike, or anyone else, but I love him," Will said quietly, fear and somberness edging his voice. "Or at least, I used to. I don't know anymore, ever since he met Eleven. Honestly, she's better for him that me."

He gave me a careful glance. "I'm sorry, Sasha. You probably don't care to hear about me venting."

I denied. "I don't judge. You're the coolest, nicest person I've met and I don't know where these mouthbreathers get off treating you like this. I'm surprised you cared to listen to my backstory.  If anything, you probably don't want to hear me venting, or bothering you with questions."

Will sat up. "No, it's actually interesting. Has anyone ever told you how cool you are? I mean yes, you do break into government facilities and commit mass murder via chainsaw, but it is justified."

That was a simple question, just like finding love. "No. I've been called a fine specimen by the Hawkins Lab scientists, but people  just run away screaming when they see me."

Will observed me for a moment and began to fidget. "Those people just don't know you is all. I don't see why you wouldn't have gotten to know other people, before me."

"You're the only person who wouldn't run away screaming upon seeing me, even when I'm covered in blood and wielding a chainsaw from a trip to the Lab. Keep in mind, people only see me as a homocidical demon who's going to tear their head off. You're different."

"That's a shame," Will replied. "Because they won't know how cool you are, since they judged you from the first few seconds of sight, although just to be honest, you did scare the shit out of me."

I laughed. "I often do that. Even though I have good intentions in murdering the Hawkins Lab people, it's pretty antisocial."

Will began to fidget even more. "I don't care if it's antisocial, Sasha. Thank you. You've been helping me and other people who could become prey to these tests, and you probably saved me from having the shittiest life ever in Hawkins Lab yesterday. I don't know if you know this, but I... I love you."

I froze, feeling my heartbeat accelerate, taken off guard, even though I had known, although vaguely. "I don't know if you know this, Will, but I love you too."

"Let's keep it our secret," Will suggested. "I don't think my friends would forgive me, especially Mike, since they definitely don't know you well enough."

"Agreed," I replied. "No one will ever have to know."


	7. The Antidote for Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: This chapter contains underage alcohol abuse, so if you find that triggering/don't want to read it feel free to skip this chapter. Otherwise, enjoy :)

_Will's pov_

I slept lightly, my mind and thoughts still active after my body was asleep, and I awoke earlier than usual, for a Sunday morning, or whatever it was here. I continued to work on the watch I had snagged from the jewelry store. Since it was in the Upside Down, the confusing magnetic field and time difference had broken it, but I had some knowledge about watches, so I would see if I could fix it. 

Presently, Sasha woke up too, and we left the bunker, as she carefully checked the area for any unwelcome visitors. We then journeyed out of the town and into the woods, somewhere between the town and my house. There, Sasha discreetly made a portal in one of the trees, so she could sneak into the Right Side Up. 

"Wait here until I come back and say it's clear," Sasha said. "We don't know how many baddies the Lab has hunting for us right now."

I agreed, and she burrowed into the portal. I waited apprehensively by the tree for what seemed like hours, until there was action in the portal. It warped and stretched, and I could make out hands, boots and even the barrel of a gun pushing against the membrane, and I could hear muffled screams. Sasha came out first, dragging a very unlucky Hawkins Lab baddie out with her. 

The first thing she did was rip his gun out of his grasp and throw it aside, and knock his helmet off, so his face was exposed to his very harsh environment. Then, Sasha slugged him twice, and the man groaned in pain. 

"Where are they?" she snapped.

"Who?" replied the man, looking surprised that Sasha was speaking to him. 

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. Will's mom and brother."

"They're staying at Hawkins Lab, uhh- ma'am," he grunted in reply. 

"And where are the rest of you? You're everywhere in the woods, huh?"

"Yes," the agent admitted. "We've also got sentries in town and all over Hawkins. If you want to get back to the Right Side Up, I suggest you don't try it. Someone's ought to see you, and no matter how many you kill, there will be twice as many to back them up."

"Alright. Thank you for your help," Sasha replied, motioning for Will to avert his eyes from her and the captive agent. which he did, and tried his best to block out the sounds of bones crunching and the man's scream being cut off. 

Sasha stole the man's weaponry belt because who the hell doesn't need that shit when they're in a dimension where they can get themselves a mansion for free and with no opposition. She then cast his broken body into the portal and closed it, making the motions of dusting her hands off as though she had just overcome a large problem, and we left for the town again, after briefly stopping at the bunker for spray paint, and whatever else they would need for another day of vandalizing Hawkins.

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of a rustle behind me, but the area was vacant. I brushed it off, as it was just one of the natural sounds of the Upside Down, unless Sasha had followed for some reason, although she had been up a block from me the last time I had seen her. I edged closer to the buildings as I walked though. I didn't matter if I had a guardian angel of a demogorgon on my side; the Upside Down still scared the living hell out of me. I eventually zoned out as I strolled slowly down the sidewalk, looking for a convenience store or something that hadn't already been broken into and plundered, so I was also given another huge scare when a soda can in an alleyway tipped over as I passed. I spun around, flicking out a switchblade that I had brought along, but as always there was nothing there, but I would still probably be traumatized for life. I got a strong feeling that I was being watched, overpowering my knowledge that it was just part of the nostalgia of being in the Upside Down.

_Knock it off, you're being a pussy._

I internally growled. This needed to stop. I needed to toughen up and stop being such a wimp about being a dead dimension. Just then I noticed that I was standing in front of a bar, like the one that Hopper liked to hang out in. Of course, that was it. Alcohol induced a feeling of calm, which would quench the unnecessary terror that I badly wanted to do away with. No one knew this, not Mom, or even Mike, but I had gotten a minor alcohol addiction after my rescue from the Upside Down. I consumed it in small amounts and infrequently, but it still helped to disintegrate the long term trauma of my experience, and I had quit it within a few weeks. Now though, I was back in this terrifying world, and with it, my initial terror. But it did have a cure.

I quietly entered the bar. Not a thing inside moved besides me, and the air was dead still. I sauntered behind the counter, to the shelves of alcoholic drinks. I batted away some of the odd, mildew-y cobwebs that hung on the shelves and surveyed my extensive options, settling on a bottle of vodka, just to keep things in control. The first shot burned at first, but a feeling of calm spread through me, and as though I had made a new revelation, the Upside Down didn't seem so scary anymore. It was just a dead, old dilapidated place with no one around but Sasha, me and the Shadow Monster, who never seemed to be present. The bottle gradually emptied, and by the time it was dry, I could barely stand on my own. The world spun around me, and I reeled, trying to step forward, but then just stumbling into the counter and leaning against it. I felt like I would vomit my guts out any moment, so apparently the dosing hadn't been very controlled.

I remained slouching behind that counter, dazed and drunk as hell until Sasha came in. I tried to greet her, but my speech was slurred and strange sounding.

"Dude, what the fuck?" she exclaimed, surprised and incredulous as she took in my wasted state. "You can't just do that, Will. What if you fell and got hurt or something? And now you're temporarily retarded, so who knows what the fuck might happen? You're in no state to defend yourself if the Shadow Monster comes along, or Hawkins Lab- you're lucky I found you before someone else did."

"You sound like my mom," I retorted.

"Well, right now I am your mom, because apparently you can't see how stupid it is to get drunk in the Upside Down," Sasha snapped.

"Oh fine," I groaned, leaning my head against my hands. " _Sorry._ "

"Let's just get you back before you do any more dumbfuck shit."

I tried to stand up, but that caused my mind to reel again, and I staggered, moaning like a half asleep cow with serious intestinal problems.

Sasha caught me though. "Just lean against me. You're so boozed up you could run your face right through the floor and never realize it."

I sluggishly lifted my arms and draped them around Sasha's midsection. I felt her tense up for a moment, as though she hadn't been expecting me to do that, but my mind was too slow and muddled to process what it meant. We walked slowly out of the bar, and quietly up the sidewalk, and I felt a vague feeling of surprise at how soft her skin was, since judging from the appearance of the first of her species, it would seem rather coarse. But I didn't care. It was a battle just to stay awake and keep my internal anatomy inside me until we reached the bunker, and I half dragged myself, was half shoved down the entrance tunnel by Sasha, and I collapsed on the floor, feebly trying to get up. Again, Sasha helped me up, and I clung to her again, and that was the last thing I was conscious of before I blacked out. 


	8. The Seductive Type

_Will's pov_

My first thought was that I was lying on my makeshift bed in the bunker when I began to regain consciousness. Then I realized pretty fast that I wasn't in my bed when I found that I had my arms wrapped around Sasha's torso, my head resting on the side of her neck. Wait. What the hell was I doing? I had no memories of what had happened prior to that moment, except for a vague memory of earlier this morning when Sasha was interrogating one of the Hawkins Lab guys about where mom and Johnathan where, so I nearly freaked out, as there seemed to be no explanation for my current situation, and as a result my heart rate increased dramatically, punching against Sasha's back.

She stirred. "I see you're awake," she commented, sounding somewhat groggy. "You've been out for a while."

"Um, why am I here?" I asked, still very confused, although I found that to my surprise, I didn't even feel uncomfortable in this position, or anything like that.

"Oh, you got drunk," Sasha explained curtly. "When I finally found you, you were about ready to pass out, and you couldn't even walk by yourself, so you clung to me like a barnacle. That was a pretty stupid thing to do. That was way too much alcohol, and you were in serious danger. Also, you couldn't have felt that great."

I could still feel the affects of the booze wearing off. "I did that because I was afraid." I admitted to her. "I'm scared to death when I'm in the Upside Down, like, more than a usual person would be, so I was tired of being in constant terror, but drinking helps with that. I know it was stupid, but I really needed it."

"I understand what it's like to be afraid, but as long as you have me around, you don't need to be afraid. Anyone who fucks around with you will find themselves at the end of my chainsaw."

I gave a small smile, not removing my arms from her wiry body. "Understood," then I wondered if I was creeping Sasha out. "Um, should I leave?"

"If you want to," her tone didn't sound at all uncomfortable, and something about it prompted me to stay. 

She shifted slightly, leaning into me a bit, and I tightened my arms around her slightly. My eyes moved slowly as I observed Sasha. For someone who spent as much of her time sleeping as she did, she was hot.

She lifted her hand, reaching slowly downwards until it came to rest on top of my hand. I relaxed into her, not caring how weird it must have been, and I could have sworn her face turned slightly redder. I sensed that the atmosphere had changed to, to a more tense, warmer mood. I began to move my hand very slowly up and down her abdomen and chest in a rhythmic, stroking way. Sasha writhed slightly, and I knew that she was thinking just what I was thinking. I moved us both, so that we were facing each other. I decided to act before I regretted this.

_Sasha's pov_

I was expecting this to happen. I did not know when or how, but knew this would happen soon. I could tell by the way Will had been glancing at me, and the fact that I too had thoughts about him, and also the way he clung to me while he was drunk and I was walking him back. I could tell that it wasn't just him acting like a scared little kid, or that he was doing that entirely for balance, since he continued to hug on to me even after we got to the bunker. Will could have gone to his own bed, but even through his drunken state, I could tell he wanted this.

Will moved us both, so that I was on my back and we were facing each other before straddling me. My first instinct would have been to ask what the hell he was doing, but I knew what the hell he was doing. 

"You ready?" Will asked, tenatively. 

"Hell yeah," I replied, smiling seductively in the way that I could smile without a face.

Will smiled back as he began to pull off his shirt, but I stopped him and completed the motion. He looked slightly underweight, but for a nerdy guy like him who liked video games and D&D as much as he did, he was damn hot.

After he had taken off the rest of his clothes, he returned to straddling me, crouching over me and staring down at me, looking at me with that devious smile of his. I could feel his shaft getting hard against my stomach, that feeling alone sparking erotic sensations, and I could feel my core getting wet. I returned his stare as he leaned down and kissed me, blushing madly. We held it for a long time, as I traced my hands up his arms and wrapped mine over his back. Will began to slowly kiss and bite my neck. I vaguely felt an instinctive sense of vulnerability at having my jugular area exposed like that,  but it subsidied quickly, replaced by ecstasy and pleasure. I purred softly, and I noticed at that moment that I was coming into heat. I leaned back my head and writhed slightly in Will's grasp, as his cock got even harder  against my stomach.

"Just enter me!" I hissed at him, but Will only smirked at me.

"You have to ask for it," he chided me, "like a good little bitch."

I was at the end of my patience, so I decided to humor him, even though I was anything but a good little bitch. 

"Please, daddy," I begged. "Fuck me."

"Well, don't say you didn't ask for it," Will replied, sarcastically.

I received the strongest, most intense hit of ecstasy that I had ever felt as he thrust his rod into my pussy with a gasp, and I gave a small screech. I gave a brief thought to wether or not we were compatible, what with the thing where I was a demogorgon and he was a human and all, or if this would harm either of us, or even impregnate me, since I was in heat at the time. I quickly dismissed those thoughts, deciding to stay in the moment, as my lover continued to slowly thrust. His size stretched my unaccustomed cunt, and I felt a sharp pain, as I was a virgin, and I hissed.

"Sorry," Will replied, pausing.

"No. Keep going. Virginity is for suckers."

I moaned and spoke all manner of dirty language that my mother would not have approved of, if I had a mother. I could tell Will was soaking it up from the look on his face, enjoying it almost as much as the sex itself, and it must have been quite intense for him too, from the way he cursed and moaned softly.

Will ran his hand down the length of my midsection, meticulously following the way my waist curved  in an hourglass figure. I shuddered slightly, just from the added sensation of him touching me. He noticed smugly, and began to softly massage my chest area, sparking a new sensation of pleasure, but I was tired of how softly he was fucking me.

"Harder!" I demanded.

"Harder, what?" Will implied egotistically, and I sighed in joking exasperation.

"Harder, _daddy."_

That time Will responded, thrusting even harder. I gasped, as the ecstasy increased with the added strength. 

"Fuck me, daddy!" I grunted, digging my claws into the mattress.

"Oh hell yes, Sasha!" Will replied, surprisingly cooperative.

I could feel his member getting harder inside of me with each thrust, pressure building in us both. 

"Mmm yeah," I hissed deliriously as the sensations intensified. 

Will leaned down until he was right above me. "Talk dirty to me," he ordered, and I happily obeyed.

"Harder daddy... I'm your bitch. Oh, please fill my cunt with that huge cock of yours, bang me until you cum!"

"If you insist, slut," Will replied seductively, fucking me even harder as we came ever closer to climaxing. 

When I felt as though he would explode inside me, Will gave a final thrust, immediately causing us both to climax. And here I thought the beginning was overpowering. The sheer ecstasy of the orgasm was so strong I thought I would pass out, and I felt Will cum deep inside me. He lay on top of me for a long moment as we caught our breaths. 

"Thank you," Will finally said.

"No," I replied. "Thank you. I don't think I could have gotten the courage to start that. And hey, I may have been an inexperienced virgin, so what a ton I know, but no one fucks better than you."

"Aw, thanks," he murmured, turning so we were lying on our sides facing each other while embracing.

"Love you, Will," I whispered, stroking his hair.

"Love you too, Sasha," Will kissed me affectionately, then settled his head in the curve of my neck. We stayed that way for the rest of the day, asleep.


	9. The Infiltration

_Will's pov_

I blinked my eyes groggily to clear away the bleariness, still adjusted to the dim light. I remembered what happened before I had gone to sleep, as I found myself cuddled up against Sasha, again. I assumed that it might be early evening, or in the dark hours of the morning in the Right Side Up. I wasn't sure if Sasha was awake or not, since it was obviously hard to judge, due to the characteristics of her species. I lay awake, my mind wandering. What was happening to Mom and Johnathan? According to the scientist that Sasha had captured in Mirkwood, they were in Hawkins Lab, but what was happening to them? Were they being treated right, or was the Lab just treating them like prison inmates. Regardless, we had to find them and get them out of that hellhole. I also thought of my friends. Were they turning the world inside out trying to find me, maybe even getting in trouble with Hawkins Lab trying to access the portal, since we all new the main one was in the deep basement of the Lab. I found myself thinking especially of Mike. If he ever found out about my relationship with Sasha, what would he think? Was it possible that he shared my past feelings for him, and feel betrayed? I decided that he just wouldn't know, to keep things from getting complicated. Then again, friends don't lie...

Just then I felt Sasha stir.   
"You awake?" she asked.  
"Yeah."  
She noticed my thoughtful, worried expression. "What's on your mind?"  
"I was just thinking about what's going on in the Right Side Up. I hope my mom and brother are okay. Hawkins Lab can sort of be dicks sometimes, to say the least."  
"I get it. I've been thinking about that too. I doubt they're being treated nicely, knowing this from personal experience," she paused for a moment. "I kinda feel like going on a killing spree tonight. Perhaps I could bust your family out as well."  
"Wait, really?" I asked, elated.  
"If you wanted to. I've broken out some of the children that they do tests on, so it can't be that tall of an order," Sasha replied nonchalantly.   
I clambered off the bed. "Let's go now, if you're ready."  
"I'm ready, but I would recommend that you get some clothes on, or you'll turn into an icicle, and your family probably wouldn't find you very presentable." 

Concealed in the shadows of the remains of a collapsed building, I observed Hawkins Lab. I knew that Sasha was near, wielding her infamous chainsaw, but I wasn't intimidated by her. From the outside of the Lab, it looked inactive, but from what she had told me, the Lab had people patrolling the Upside Down version of it, so that no infiltrations would be possible.  

Apparently nothing was impossible for Sasha though. She replaced the chainsaw with a crossbow, which she had swiped from a hunting store, to keep things quiet, since the sound of a chainsaw, gunshot or screams could bring every well-armed agent in the building swarming to our location. I stayed behind in my hiding place as Sasha stalked up to the laboratory. She crept up from the side, staying away from the entrance area while she loaded the bow, before she peeked around the corner. I watched her arm slowly draw back as she pulled the bowstring, take aim on the target who was out of my sight, and then her arm jerked as she released it. Sasha darted out of sight, still watching the door way as she knocked a second arrow, and then jumping back to the corner; pull back. Aim. Fire. 

Sasha sauntered away from the entrance area and returned to me, putting the quiver and crossbow, which wasn't very large, in the backpack I was carrying, which contained the weapons and ammunition they would need for the break in.  
"I didn't know you knew how to use a crossbow," I commented, as Sasha picked up her chainsaw and lead they way into Hawkins Lab, between the two languid guards who slumped on the ground, impaled by arrows. 

She swayed her hips sexily in arrogance as she strolled into the Lab, as though she couldn't have given a fuck if every agent there had come running to the scene. I took a handgun out of the back pocket of my backpack and hefted it in my hands. When I was around ten, Joyce had shown me how to use a gun, in case I needed to defend myself, and in this case I would. 

The first trouble we met was on level two, right outside the stairwell. Not expecting to see us, the agents paused in momentary silence, broken by Sasha cracking her knuckles insolently before plunging into battle. Fortunately for my health, they were completely distracted from me by Sasha's attack, in which they attempted and failed to pig-pile Sasha, shooting her incessantly, although it had no effect on her. Her trademark weapon roared to life, and in one swift motion, she slashed at the nearest attacker, slicing off his head and left arm and sending blood flying. The others yelled and backed up, fazed by the manner of their colleague's passing. 

I watched in a mixture of admiration and horror as Sasha released her ferocity on her enemies, sometimes beheading multiple agents in one swing, cutting them in half or down the middle, or just dicing them up, painting the walls an even thicker scarlet, patched with brain matter and other entrails and spoils that looked like they had been through a blender. When Sasha was done, she paused within a circle of pulverized corpses to admire her handiwork.

"That is both scary and really cool," Will commented, before they continued down the hallway. 

Sasha chose a hallway that she said had less activity in it to make a portal to the Right Side Up. Since we didn't know where Will's family was being kept, we would have to rely on simply blundering into them. 

When I first stepped out of the portal, the harsh white light scalded my eyes, and I needed a moment to adjust to the light. We padded cautiously down the hallway, aware that there was probably backup being sent to our location, since we had probably been spotted through the security cameras. We waited at the end of the aisle, as an unsuspecting scientist proceeded down the intersecting hallway.

When he was at the very corner, Sasha darted out like a trapdoor spider and snatched him into the disused corridor, one hand covering his mouth as he tried to scream in alarm, the other closed threateningly around his throat. She waited patiently for the scientist to tire himself out from panicking.

"Do not make a noise unless I tell you otherwise, or I'll tear your windpipe out. Is that understood?" Sasha began to instruct the scientist, who nodded vigorously, and she uncovered his mouth. "I want you to tell me where you are keeping Johnathan and Joyce Byers."

"They are on level five, in cell number thirteen, unless they have been relocated without my knowing. Just please, let me live," he begged. 

"We'll see," Sasha didn't sound very reassuring. She removed her hand from the man's throat and motioned for me to hold the handgun to his head.

The scientist noticed me for the first time, and his terrified expression morphed into pure confusion and surprise, but he said nothing, and walked forth obediently. We only met several other scientists on our way to the stairwell, and Sasha took care of them without much trouble, shielding me from stray gunfire with her body. 

As we reached level five, Sasha made a portal back to the Upside Down, in case Mom and Johnathan's cell was heavily guarded, and she had the upper hand in the darker, more incoherent environment. The scientist was more hesitant as he lead us to the said destination, but the area had been cleaned up of the usual vines and cobwebs that riddled the dead dimension, and Sasha got a flashlight out of my backpack so that our hostage could see better. 

The second wave came after the scientist said that we were close. The stray fire killed the scientist in almost a second, and Sasha had to dart in front of me to prevent me from having the same fate as the attackers opened fire on her. I crept along behind her as she advanced on them, dismembering them with large sweeps of her chainsaw. I would sometimes peek out from behind her and fire at the remaining agents with my handgun, until we were the only living beings in the area. I glanced at the room numbers for the cells. We were standing next to cell eleven, and moved down to thirteen.

Thirteen was completely empty, at least in the Upside Down, but I knew that my mom and brother were in that room, possibly right where I was standing. I nearly cannonballed into the Right Side Up when Sasha made the portal, and of course, was greeted by shrill screams of terror. I pulled myself free from the membrane-like thing and stood up. Johnathan was standing protectively in front of Mom, both possessing petrified expressions.

Mom opened her mouth and tried to say something, but she couldn't form any sound. I glanced at Sasha, and signaled for her to put the chainsaw down, so she looked less threatening. Finally Joyce found her voice.

"Will, are you _absolutely insane?"_ she exploded. "There is a monster right beside you!"

"Mom, it's okay," I reassured her. "It's a long story, but her name is Sasha, and we're here to break you out."

Mom wouldn't have it. "You disappear into god knows where, for like, three days! Those bastards from Hawkins Lab show up and imprison us as though we were wanted criminals, and then you turn up in our cell in fucking Hawkins Lab, along with that demogorgon. Do you have a death wish?"

I decided not to tell her how recently we had been screwing. "Again, it was Hawkins Lab. They chased me into the Upside Down and I met Sasha," if there's a problem, just blame it on Hawkins Lab. 

I heard a banshee yell from an agent outside the cell, and we all jumped. 

"Guys, we should probably finish up and get going before they find us," Sasha warned.

"Look, I'll explain on the way, but we gotta go," I said hastily, gesturing for my mother and brother to follow me through the portal, which they begrudgingly did. We met another wave of soldiers on our way out, and Joyce and Johnathan averted their eyes while Sasha and I annihilated them, and then we rushed down to ground level and charged right through the lobby and out of the laboratory. We didn't stop until we had escaped from the compound. 

"That," Johnathan puffed, "was insane."


	10. Never make deals with Hawkins Lab

_Sasha's pov_

We jumped back into the Right Side Up somewhere in Maple Street, near Mike's house. I was quite drained from all the portal-making and running through Hawkins Lab killing people, and I was falling asleep on my feet, and I had a mild but nagging headache.

"Are you sure about what you're going to do next?" I consulted Joyce. "Since the Lab has your property under a microscope at the moment, and it would be pointless to try to go back."

"I don't know anything anymore," Joyce sighed, rubbing her temple. "I guess we'll stay at the Wheeler house for now, but one thing's for sure, we're calling the cops on these son of a bitches," there was a long pause. "I just want to say thank you so much for getting us out of that hellhole, er- Mrs Demogorgon."

Joyce's last comment caused Will and I to giggle. "No problem, it's the least I could do, Mrs Human."

We were all laughing by then, even Johnathan, who had been mostly quiet and serious. We were just about to part ways when I heard something clatter onto the pavement of the road. As I turned to look at the source of the sound, I heard a rustle and a muffled _eek_ from beside me. I spun around, and to my horror, one of the Lab agents was holding Joyce captive, a gun pressed to her temple. 

"Don't. Even. Think about it," he snarled at me. "Try something funny and I'll blow her brains out."

"Mom!" Will rasped, his face paling.

"Get away from her!" Johnathan yelled at the scientist, but received a warning look.

I suddenly felt weak with fear, my long limbs felt like cooked linguini, and my pulse roared in my head. It wasn't that I couldn't easily beat this person in a fight to the death, but I _couldn't._ If I tried to kill him, then the scientist would shoot Joyce. For the first time since I had escaped from Hawkins Lab shortly after I had been born, I felt powerless. 

"Put down the chainsaw," he ordered, which I did. 

Suddenly an idea rushed through my head. It was a crazy one, and it might be unsuccessful and end up with us all killed or in captivity, but it was worth a shot.

"I can make a deal with you," I blurted.

"What?" the scientist nearly dropped his gun. "You? Make a deal with us? It's preposterous!"

"I will turn myself in, no chainsaws, no judo, no gore. I will cooperate. Under one condition: you let Will and his family go. You  call off everyone who you may have hunting them down right now, and you clear your baddies off of his property. Don't mess with him and his family again."

The bad man seemed to be considering the bargain. He knew that the first thing the Byers family would do once free would be to squeal to the police about all the dastardly things Hawkins Lab had done, but on the other hand, I was FBI most wanted criminal for the Lab, and they would go to great lengths to capture me, and the Lab was stronger than the police force in many ways. I just hoped that my bargain would give Will and his family enough time to get to somewhere safe and notify the cops, before Hawkins Lab went out to recapture them, since I knew they would never keep the bargain, and send out their firing squads after the Byers as soon as possible.

"I accept the offer," the scientist said finally, and called in his patrol on his two-way.

"Sasha, no!" Will protested. He tried to advance on the bad man, perhaps knock the gun away from his mother's head, but Johnathan restrained him.

"Will, I'll be fine, okay? I can handle myself," I tried to convince him.

"You mean you're not aware of what they are going to do to you? They'll downright torture you to death!" Will argued.

By that time, the rest of the bad men pack had materialized out of the woods, their guns drawn, although many were pointed at Will and his unoffending family. I raised my hands in the air in submission. 

"What I mean is, I'll try to survive, alright? It's on my to-do list," I replied. _"Teryat'sya!_ (get lost) _"_ I yelled at Will when he continued to stand there with a stricken look on his face like a deer in headlights. 

We watched them as they took off down the road, in the direction of Mike's house. When they were out of view, the agents continued to press in on me, and I raised my arms higher. I could only watch in fear as one of the agents in front of me removed a syringe and a small vial of some liquid from her pocket. She stared me dead in the face as she extracted every drop of the liquid from the vial and into the needle before walking almost nonchalantly up to me. I wanted more than anything to pounce on her and maul the living shit out of her, but if I made a move, I would be the one who would be mauled by the rest of the squad, which was all but restraining me now, as I surrendered myself weaponless and cooperatively to their clutches. It didn't help my fearsome appearance to be without my infamous chainsaw and small for a demogorgon.

The woman walked so close to me that I could feel her warm breath billowing against my face. I didn't move. I felt the pressure of cold metal on the side of my neck, and then a sharp sting. I began to feel woozy and half-awake, as though I were in a dream, like I had boozed myself up on vodka like Will had done. I cursed in Russian before I blacked out.

Before I was even awake, I could feel the cold, harsh white lights of the lab glaring down at me. I found myself restrained to a metal test table that sat against the wall. I was restrained by powerful metal clamps over my limbs, neck, midsection and bust. There was no way that I could use my strength to escape from those. The coldness of the metal bit into my skin even though I was used to being in cold environments. The bonds were tight and inhospitable, quite uncomfortable. I wasn't even very busty, but the clamp over my chest seemed to be crushing the air out of my lungs.

"You were out for a long time," I heard a voice note from one side of the room.

"It's kind of a usual thing for me," I replied curtly, struggling uselessly against the metal clamps. 

I turned my head to one side, towards the direction of the voice. The clamp across my neck would allow that. There was a chubby middle aged man with salt-and-pepper hair standing beside the test table, regarding me with mingled contempt and curiosity. I noticed that behind him on a counter, was an array of various fluid vials and prescription bottles, as well as yes, you guessed it: a syringe. How lovely.

"Allow me to introduce myself, _Sasha._ I'm Dr. Owens. Your personal scientist and executioner," a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. He put his hand in his pocket, and it retreated sneakily with a latex glove, which he then made a scene of snapping on.

I growled, and ugly, deranged primordial sound from the depths of my vocal cords. "You're not my _personal_ scientist and executioner, you're the personal scientist and executioner of all your lab rat kids that you've been hiding away in your padded white rooms like they're fucking asylum inmates. You may be able to use that on other people, but don't even try to hide your dirty laundry from me. I know all about what you do." 

"That doesn't matter now," Owens  barked, snapping on his other latex glove. "Right now, you're the test subject."

 _"Trakhni_ _tebya,_ _sliznyak!_ (fuck you, slug) _"_ I hissed in loathing at him.

"Such vulgar language," Owens chastised.

 _"Hooy_ _morzhovy!"_ I retorted defiantly.

Owens frowned. "I am not a walrus dick."

Clearly having enough of my Russian pottymouth, the said walrus dick picked up the syringe and after eyeing the vials ambitiously, picked one out and drained the fluids into the syringe. 

"Here we are. Let's start with a moderate dose of arsenic, shall we? How about we start with that, maybe end with cyanide?" Owens patted me on the shoulder in a fake gesture of reassurance, and I snapped at his hand, and missed. Dammit. "I've have enough of your shit, monster!" his hand darted back, out of reach, and returned to smack me hard across the face. I didn't try to attack him again. 

He then roughly shoved my head back, exposing an area for injection. I felt a sharp prick as a thin needle broke my skin, probably entering the jugular. Ow. I wasn't sure just how much arsenic would be harmful for me, but I already wasn't feeling great, either from the slap, or the chemical was taking effect alarmingly fast. I hadn't had much experience with arsenic, but I hoped that my body would be able to fight it off. Never mind. It didn't matter. By the time Owens ran out of chemicals on the table to test on me, he would use the said cyanide on me, and that would be the end of that, wether or not my body was harmed by the arsenic or not.

After Owens had waited for a few minutes, observing how I reacted to the chemicals and taking notes on a clipboard, he then took a blood sample from the area of the injection and put it in an empty vial for further investigation. He then repeated the injection, observation and notes, blood test with several other substances. One was some sort of acid or other nasty toxin, because it burned upon entry. It felt like my blood was lava for several minutes, and then reduced to a dull throb, but I refused to cry out in pain, or do anything but lie on the table and give Owens a burning glare. One of the other chemicals might have been heroin, because it induced a pleasurable sensation that came in a rush. I was almost regretful when it passed, but I knew that whatever it was, probably some other harmful opioid, if it wasn't heroin, I certainly did not want it in my system. 

It was when Owens was readying the fifth or sixth injection that his two-way went off. A staticy voice came through, saying: "Doctor, there's been a security breach! Over," in an urgent tone. 

Dr Owens growled, and replied, "take care of it then. If it's the cops, annihilate them. If it's our here monster's friends again, put them back in their cell. I have further use for them. Over."

"But your assistance is needed, Doctor. It's absolute chaos down here. Over."

"I'm in the middle of something here," Owens complained, but he set aside his vial and syringe. "But I'll hurry down. Send someone up here to watch the test subject, make sure she doesn't try anything funny. Over and out."

With that, Owens begrudgingly took off his latex gloves and stormed out.

Of course, my first thoughts were to escape, make a portal to the Upside Down, but then what? Would I just end up strapped to the same test table, but in another dimension and drained of energy? It wouldn't take long for them to find me, and I would probably be treated even harsher for my escape attempt. I heard an alarm go off from somewhere outside the room, someone on the level I was on began yelling their fool head off. Gunshots rang off a level or two below me. I felt a faint sense of hope; the popos  were here.

 The door to the testing room swung wide, but to my dismay, it was not a member of the police force, but one of the numerous agents. He locked the door behind him and stood at ready in front of it, his machine gun poised. Of course. Owens had sent on of his stooges in to make sure I didn't try anything funny. He would save the pleasure of poisoning me for himself. 

I heard the sound of a large amount of people coming up one of the staircases accesses, which was near my room. It may have been reinforcements, or the onslaught of the cops was succeeding, and they were about to raid the next level of evidence of the Lab's dastardly deeds. I noticed my guard getting tense, the vein on his forehead sticking out. 

The arrivals had now dismounted onto my level. Soon, they would be passing the testing room. I hatched a split-second plan.

If they were the police force, which judging by the sound they were, then they were about to get ambushed by the guard Owens had assigned to me, from the way he stood by the door, his hand on the handle, gun at ready, as though ready to barge out into the hallway, to take out as many of the attackers as possible. Not on my watch.

The cops were my only possible way out, as strange as it was, and I didn't want to risk them getting hurt by this sonofabitch ready to jump them. However, I needed to draw their attention, which was a little hard when I was restrained to a table at the far side of the room, so that they wouldn't pass it by, thinking it was just a janitor closet or something. 

Their footsteps and yells echoed in the hallway, impending upon the testing room, and the guard tensed, ready to explode out in a flurry of bullets. 

The police were right at the door, and it all happened within a few seconds. I focused my energy, projecting it to the area on the floor underneath my guard, and I felt a tugging sensation, as well as my strength draining rapidly. His hand went down on the handle, the door began to open. 

"Hey! You forgot something!" I yelled at the guard. The sound of my voice startled him, and he momentarily forgot about the mission at hand, spinning around to face me in surprise. 

Just then, a portal opened up right beneath his feet, its magnetic field sucking the further astonished guard right in, aided by the weight of his body. I heard an outraged scream through the portal, and I quickly closed it with the last of my strength. 

I gasped desperately, the fact that those tight ass clamps on my neck and chest didn't permit my windpipe and lungs to expand to the necessary size for my current respiratory needs not helping one bit. Opening a portal right in front of me or under me was one thing- it fatigued me, sometimes more that other times, but making one a distance away sapped all of my energy, and it was potentially deadly, if it took enough force.

Fortunately, the row my portal-opening had raised, and the guard's attempted jump scare got the attention of the cops, who were right in front of the door at that time. The door even swung wide, showing what remained of the portal, which faded like a healing scar. They burst into the room, their guns drawn, the leader of the group barking commands. They halted in surprise  when they saw that I was the last remaining inhabitant of the testing room. It must have been a pretty strange sight for them, an exhausted looking interdimensional monster strapped to a large metal table.

The group leader raised his two-way slowly away from his belt and to his mouth. "Hey Chief, do you copy? There's something that you might wanna take a look at. We're on level five, room two-seventeen. The one with the door wide open and all the chemical bottles on the table."

"Be right up, Callahan," came the Chief's reply. 

Callahan put his two-way away, his grip firm around his gun. He took a cautious step towards the test table. "What the _living fucking hell_ is that?" he whispered in disbelief.

"And why the fuck does that Sam Owens guy have it strapped to a table?" one of Callahan's group added, but got no reply.

"Actually, it's a she," I corrected Callahan. "Call her Sasha. As for why she's bolted to a table, it's a long story. Let's just say he felt like being a black hole-sized asshole."

Callahan jumped in surprise. "You _talk?_ " 

"Apparently I do," then after a pause, I added, "Do you have like, a hacksaw or a wrench or something? I'm really not digging these clamps, or the table. Or that _hooy morzhovy_ Owens injecting me with arsenic and a bunch of other unknown chemicals."

"I really don't know if that's a good idea or not," Callahan eyed my claws cautiously. "I think we should wait for Hopper to decide that." 

"Hey, I don't bite," I replied in defense, which was partly correct, at least if you're not from Hawkins Lab. 

Just then, I heard a second group barge out of the stairwell and into the hallway. Callahan peeked out the doorway, before calling out to the arrival, who was the said Chief Hopper. 

"Holy fucking virgin mother of Christ," was Hopper's reaction of astonishment, after his voice had returned. "That's the monster from last year."

"Apparently, Sasha is fluent in English and Russian," Callahan supplied. 

"I never remembered the monster having a name, or speaking Russian. Or English, for that matter. It's occupation was abducting Will Byers, and then terrorizing Hawkins, if you don't remember."

Callahan nodded. "I didn't get my hands on all the dirty laundry of last year's crisis, but yeah, there was some fucked up stuff that happened. I thought it was Brenner who squirreled the kid, though..."

"Guys, look, I know the guy from last year, and I can assure you that I'm not him," I interrupted their conversation. "I'm fluent in Russian and he's not, he kidnapped Will and I protected Will from Hawkins Lab, and I'm not going to hurt you if you get me off this motherfucking table."

"And how do we know we can trust you?" was Hopper's reply.

I considered it for a moment. "If you let me off, then you can handcuff me."

Hopper raised his eyebrow. "Okay then."

He rummaged around until he found the wrench that had been used to fasten down the bolts on the clamps, and took them off. For a moment, I could only lie there and feel freedom in its purest form at having the clamps finally off my body, but then I rolled over on my front, elevating my arms in the air together. I felt bracelet-like metal wrap around my wrists, tightening with a click, and Hopper stood back, giving me access to clumsily get off the table. 

Hopper and his squad lead me down the stairwell to the first level. We made our way into the lobby unchallenged, and I saw some bodies, many of the Lab bad men, a few cops, as well as some gory mess, slightly similar to the work that I do, although personally, neither Hawkins Lab nor the cops know how to kill with style. We burst out of the doorway and into the night, the breeze whooshing past me as though welcoming me back into the outside world. I got into the back of Hopper's state trooper, and we hauled ass out of there.


	11. Friendship

_Will's pov_

I heard a loud commotion outside the conference room, and Jonathan, Joyce and I perked up in unison. The officer who was in the room with us got up and opened the door, letting in Chief Hopper, who shooed a group of his coworkers away, and a tired-looking Sasha, who was... handcuffed? Why would Hopper had handcuffed her? She had a history of not treating Hawkins Lab nicely, but I didn't think that she would threaten a cop. Maybe he just didn't trust her.

"Sasha! You escaped!" I got up from the table and embraced her in a polar bear-sized hug so powerful I could feel her ribs bending. 

"I said it was on my to-do list. I typically like to check off everything on there," Sasha replied, once I had released her. 

I then noticed some strange markings on an area of her neck that looked like little pinpricks, with traces of dried blood around them. They were needle marks. Sasha had definitely gotten shot up on something else that wasn't just sedative. 

"What's this for?" I inquired, brushing my hand over the syringe marks.

"Oh. Dr Walrus Dick thought he'd test a few chemicals on me before he'd have me take a dirt nap," Sasha replied. When she saw my worried expression, she added, "it's nothing. He started with the least harmful chemicals, and he got interrupted by Hopper's apocalypse on the Lab pretty soon."

"Oh," I replied, understanding. After a moment of silence, I added, "Hopper, you can take her handcuffs off? She won't attack you, I'm sure of it."

"I don't know... she seems trustworthy, and the security regulations don't really mention how to treat interdimensional monsters," he replied uncertainly.

He looked at Johnathan and Joyce, who nodded in approval. There was a clinking of metal as Hopper removed the handcuffs. For a moment, Sasha stood still, then she flexed her wrists and stretched.

"Finally those things are off. First it was the test table, then the damn handcuffs."

"Well, now it's over. No more of that," I replied.

Hopper sat down at the head of the occupied table, motioning for us to sit down too. "So, I hear that Hawkins Lab has been giving us trouble again? As if they weren't enough of a thorn in the ass last year."

"They kidnapped us when they invaded our property for some "government agency" work of theirs, except for Will," Joyce added.

Hopper raised his eyebrows. "Why not Will?"

"Sasha brought me to the Upside Down before they could get to me," I replied. "And then the Lab tried to abduct us, again."

"But they had Sasha instead of you and your family."

"I turned myself in so they could escape. I'm a highly wanted criminal to Hawkins Lab, so the trade was easy," Sasha answered him.

"So I see," Hopper nodded. "Well, I believe that's enough for now, unless you have more to say. I pretty much know your backstory with the "Department of Energy", and we'll be looking into that."

"So can we go?" Johnathan asked.

"You can if you want to," replied Hopper, "but you're probably still wanted by the Lab, for knowing stuff, and for spilling the beans to us." 

"I think it's okay," said Johnathan, and Joyce nodded. "We're going to be staying with our friends, the Wheelers. I think you know them, but the Lab doesn't, so it should be okay."

"I'll take you over, then," Hopper offered.

As we dispersed, I whispered to Sasha, "the Wheeler house is the seventh house on Maple Street. It's number 1354. Find me there. The coast will probably be clear at... around two am, I think."

"All right. Thank you."

We left with Hopper, while Sasha made a portal back to the Upside Down, causing the lights to flicker briefly.

We arrived at the Wheeler house in no time, without any interruptions, and no wrung the doorbell. Mrs. Wheeler came to the door in a bathrobe a minute  later.

"You made it," she said, exchanging a hug with Joyce, and shaking hands with Johnathan. We had already made arrangements over the phone to stay with them. "Come on in. You guys look like you've been dragged feet first through the woods."

The kitchen light was on, and I heard the sound of a door closing, and footsteps. I looked up, and Mike was at the top of the staircase.

"Will?" he whispered. "Will! Oh my gosh you're okay!" 

He ran down the stairs and embraced me in a crushing hug. "I thought you had been abducted again or something..." Mike accidentally brushed a cobweb off my back, and came away with it, confused. "You've been in the Upside Down? So you were abducted again?"

"Yeah, you could say that. It's a long story."

"Long stories are my favorite."

Mike went to the dining room and pulled out two chairs, sitting in one of them and looking expectantly at me.

I decided to give it to him honest and simple, leaving out nothing, except for a few parts. "A few days before I got abducted, I met a demogorgon on my way home, and she goes by Sasha. She was much different from the one from last year. She wasn't hostile, and she didn't try to kill me or abduct me, but she had this vendetta against Hawkins Lab, so when they found out she was hanging around Mirkwood, they invaded our property and put Mom and Johnathan under arrest. When I was returning home on Friday, they nearly caught me, but Sasha helped me escape to the Upside Down. Umm... while I was there, I helped her infiltrate Hawkins Lab and break Mom and Johnathan out."

I noticed that Mike's dark brown eyes had intensified, and his gaze seemed to bore into my soul. 

"What is it?" I asked, beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Mike wore a curious expression. "You like her, don't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"The demogorgon, Sasha. You know what I mean. Will, you were pale as a ghost and freezing cold, and now you're blushing. And fidgeting."

Oh no. This couldn't go well. Mike knew me well. Too well. I would have to think up something, a story, a lie. Maybe the house was really well heated...

_Friends don't lie._

If I lied, or tried to, Mike might never trust me again. But I couldn't have him knowing. He would never look at me the same way again. 

"Will, can I tell you something?" Mike interrupted my thoughts. 

"I'll always listen."

"I'm not sure if you know this, but I- I love you, Will. I love Eleven too- loved her. It took my mind off of how this wouldn't work, but she's gone now. And I know that a part of me will still love you, no matter what."

We both knew this. We both had a silent understanding that our feelings for each other were more than just best friends. That was before Eleven, before Sasha. I knew that every day since El had disappeared on that fateful November Saturday, Mike had been trying to contact her. He could still feel that she was out there, and I had been battling the feeling ever since El had disappeared as well, knowing that she was who Mike actually loved as a soulmate. That had gone on until I met Sasha, and I understood that I didn't love Mike as a soulmate, either. 

"I love you too, Mike," I replied quietly. "As a best friend."

Even though we knew that we weren't soulmates, we were still the best of friends. That bond could not change. 

While we had been talking about our relationship, and our other relationships with our paranormal friends, Karen had been making sleeping arrangements with Joyce. Joyce would be sleeping on the living room couch and Johnathan would get the reclining La-Z-Boy, while I would be sleeping in the basement, in the blanket fort that had once been El's refuge. That would work fine.

 I had finished showering, and had changed into clean, dry clothes at around one-forty in the morning. What a shitty time to go to bed at the beginning of the week. Monday would hit me like a slap to the face.

I was awakened by a slight noise at around three am, and I caught a glimpse of the lights flickering. The dim light of the basement nightlight revealed Sasha's furtive figure by the wall, which had the fading, telltale scar of a closing portal on it. Sasha had been extra cautious, deciding to transfer into the Right Side Up long after it would have been safe.

"Morning," I greeted her sleepily, sitting up and lifting away the blanket over the fort entrance.

"Morning, Will. Sorry if I disturbed you."

"It's fine. Nothing's going to disturb me more than this morning," I replied, rubbing my eyes.

Sasha joined me in the blanket fort. "So, did Mike probe you about being in the Upside Down?"

I nodded. "I didn't lie to him, but I didn't tell him about our, um, relationship. He guessed it, though."

"And what does he think?" she inquired.

"He doesn't like it. I could hear accusation in his voice when he guessed about us, but I think he understands, on some level."

"So much for him not knowing. I guess he would find out eventually, either way," Sasha pulled the blanket back down over the fort entrance.

"He doesn't know what's happened between us," I informed her. "He just thinks I have feelings for you, or maybe that we're as far in as he and El were."

"Then let's keep it that way," we could both agree on that.

We curled up under the thick blanket that had been left in the fort. I put my arm over her slight waist and curled around her, as much as I could, since Sasha was around a foot taller than me. She leaned into me, with a contented exhale. She was still cold to the touch from being in the Upside Down, but was warming up quickly in the new environment. My eyes were heavy, and I quickly fell into a stupor again.

The morning came like a roque mallet to the face, like I was being attacked by Jack Torrance from The Shining.

"William!" Karen's shrill voice cut through every layer of sleep that I was immersed in like a sharpened cleaver, dragging me up into the harsh reality of consciousness.

It barely woke Sasha up though. She growled, inaudibly, vibrating through her chest against my hand. "What does she want?" she mumble-whispered in annoyance.

"She wants me to get up. I have to go to school," I replied, contemptuously. To Karen, I replied, "coming right up."

With that, Mike's mother shut the basement door, so I could get dressed.

I had brought down clothes for the morning the night before, so I was spared the inconvenience of having to zombie-walk upstairs and find something to wear. Sasha woke up soon after I left the fort, and was completing her awakening while I got dressed. 

"See you later," I said to Sasha as I went upstairs.

"Good luck, Zombie Boy," she replied.

_Sasha's pov_

I waited in the blanket fort until I heard the Wheeler family, along with the Byers, clear out of the house before I cautiously ventured out, then snuck out the back door, and made my way to the school, via back roads and the woods. When I arrived, I climbed up a tall evergreen tree to watch the students filing into the school, but neither Will nor his friends were among them, at least that I could see. I knew that Will's first period class was science, but I decided not to go in close and watch the class, so I observed from high above, until I got bored when nothing happened, so I returned to my Hideout and took a nap. 

I had been asleep for hours, and it was midday by the time I returned to the Right Side Up, but still nothing much had changed except that there was another class in the science room, indicating that there had been some period rotations. So I prowled around, near the school grounds, spying on other people who happened to be doing stuff outside. I contemplated checking out Hawkins Lab to see if I could find out anything more about them, but I decided to leave it alone and keep low-profile for the time being.

 I was startled by the sound of a large bell ringing raucously inside the school. I had heard it a few times, and it meant that there was a period transition, or that school was being let out for the day. I hoped it was letting out. It was getting boring.

There was a faint clamor within the school, and the large front double doors opened, and students poured out like a nest of angry wasps. I retreated to my vantage point in the woods to avoid getting seen, where I watched the crowd carefully. After some time I noticed a group of four break away from the rest of the crowd and start off down the sidewalk, followed by a distance by another group of two. On closer inspection, I saw Will among the foursome, talking with another kid who had raven-black hair, that must have been Mike. The other two were Lucas and Dustin, although I couldn't tell who was who. I followed them at a distance in the shadows of the forest as they strayed off down the sidewalk, which was snaking its way into a more isolated, quite road. 

Mike and Will held the main conversation, which I was too far away to hear. The other two, Lucas and Dustin, made their own comments every few seconds, and I was about to creep in closer to- yes, eavesdrop- when I noticed that the duo who had left the school traveling behind Will and his friends were still trailing the group, and were beginning to close in, and seemed to be holding their own whispered conversation as well. Now that I noticed them, they seemed really _suspicious._ They didn't seem like they were just walking home to me. I dropped back to keep an eye on them. As I suspected, the two intended to cause trouble; when they were a few meters away, one of them stepped up and said,

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Zombie Boy, going on a little date with his boyfriend Frogface, all happy and _gay."_ the speaker and his friend snickered.

Will rolled his eyes in annoyance and they turned to face their tormentors. 

"Leave us alone, Troy," Mike snapped irately. "We don't want any trouble."

"Oh, but we do. See, we've noticed the Freak hasn't been hanging around with you anymore, to make me piss myself or break my arm with her mind. And you owe me for that. I hope you didn't think I'd take that shit,"  Troy sneered. He took a switchblade out of his pocket and flipped it open. The boys took a hearty step back, and he advanced. "We're picking up from where we left off..."

 


	12. Point of View

_Mike's pov_  
"We're picking up from where we left off..." Troy growled, brandishing his switchblade. James followed close behind, with a smug look on his face.

I continued to back up. We would have to run, even though both Troy and James were older and possibly faster than them.  
Before either side could make a move to escape or attack, a large, dark projectile came shooting out of the woods like a comet, slamming into Troy and causing him to do an ultimate wipeout on the sidewalk, and James screamed in fear, taking off in the opposite direction. To mine, and everyone else's surprise, the projectile turned out to be a very pissed off demogorgon, who was holding Troy down on the ground, who was, groaning, dazed from hit, with a bloody nose and at least a hundred other bruises and scrapes.

"I could cut you open with your own knife right now, if I wanted to," she was saying to Troy, wrenching the switchblade out of his hand. "Or I could blood-eagle you, like the Vikings used to do. I'm not sure what would be more fun."

She ran her claws down the front of Troy's throat, just deep enough that they could easily resemble something caused by blackberry bushes, causing him to whimper.

"W-what the fuck are you?" Troy stammered.

"I'm the monster that abducted Will last year, and last Friday. And I'm going to abduct you too. Except you won't be coming back. alive."

"N-no! Please, I'll do anything, just don't kill me," Troy begged, trying and failing to push his attacker off of him.

"I'll let you live this time," the demogorgon growled. "But I won't next time I catch you messing with this group. They're _my_ territory, so you can expect trouble if you go looking for it."

With that, she put her hand down on the arm Troy had broken the year before, and applied just enough pressure to make him whimper in pain.

"I got it," he squeaked, and he was released.

For good measure, the demogorgon kicked Troy on the inside of his knee as he got up, and he stumbled, before running like hell in the direction James had fled in. 

When the demogorgon had seen that he had fled completely out of sight, she turned back to face our group.

"Good afternoon, guys. You're welcome."

Then I swear she winked at Will, or would have if she could have. Judging by the look on Will's face, as though his childhood superhero from his comic books had become real and rescued him from bullies, the demogorgon who had just beat Troy's ass was Sasha. Will glanced at me, giving me a look that said, _don't even ask._

With the exception of Will, the rest of the party looked as though they had seen a flying saucer crash land on the street. 

"Excuse me for asking this? But who the hell are you?" Dustin asked. 

"I'm nobody. Just a random demogorgon who felt like jumping the school bullies for you," was her reply.

"Well, thank you. You didn't need to do it though," I replied hesitantly. 

As much as I wanted to deny it, I could feel red flags raising instinctively about Will's friend.

"Actually I did," Sasha contradicted. "You saw that knife as well as I did. He was going to carve you like a turkey if nothing was done."

I decided not to say anything else. 

"That was damn cool," Lucas commented. 

"Thanks. It can be quite satisfying, you know."

Sasha exchanged a look with Will, but I found that I couldn't read his expression. I was really starting to hate that. 

"I should be leaving now. If you need me again, feel free to call out," Sasha said to the rest of the party, and then did another invisible wink or whatever she was doing. I had a feeling it was directed at Will, and I was the only person who understood the purpose of that.

With that, Sasha opened a portal in a tree and burrowed through it, disappearing into the Upside Down.

"Talk about dramatic entrance and exit," Dustin commented. 

When we trooped into my house on our voyage to the basement, I was still considering Sasha. To me, something just seemed off about her.

Intentionally, I took up the rear as  we went into single file to go down to the basement, behind Will, and I seized the hood of his hoodie and tugged him away from the doorway as he went near the staircase.

"What is it, Mike?"

I thought for a moment. "I don't know about your girlfriend, Will. There's something I don't like about Sasha."

"Well, duh!" Will hissed. "She's a freaking demogorgon! You're not used to her, and you don't know her. Besides, hasn't she proven that she's clearly not like the monster from last year?"

"I know but- look, all I'm saying is be careful about this. I agree, I don't get to tell you who to be in a relationship with, but just... don't do something that could end badly."

Before Will could answer, Dustin called up the stairs, "Are you guys coming or not?"

I sighed, begrudgingly following Will into the basement. I could feel a twinge of jealousy. Then again, what if Will had had the same twinge of jealousy when he first heard about my relationship with Eleven? I guess it was a friend for a friend situation; Will lost me to Eleven, I lost Will to Sasha. 

That night, I had an odd dream. It wasn't vivid, and it was one of those dreams where you couldn't see what was happening, but you just knew. 

I was standing in my bedroom, and the lights were flickering. They only kept up their nauseating flashing for only a few moments, before it suddenly went dark again. I could hear Will's voice from downstairs. It was incoherent, and I couldn't catch a word of what he said, but it was definitely his. Then there was another voice. It was just as faint and incoherent as Will's, in fact I could only hear an uneven vibration when it was in use. Somehow I knew it was Sasha, like you know about everything that is happening in your dream, even though if it were happening in real life you wouldn't know as much.

I snapped awake. My eyes roved the ceiling as I lay in bed. It was dead quiet, except for my own breathing. There were no voices downstairs, not the slightest vibration. 


	13. Night Activity

_Will's pov_

It was probably around ten or eleven when Sasha came into the basement. Per usual, everyone was asleep, which was when she would come into the Right Side Up, when no one would see the flickering lights. This method had been done successfully for three nights by now.

"Hi, Sasha," I said, after I was fully awake.

"Hey, Will," she replied, as the portal closed. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," I replied, pulling the blanket down over the entrance to the blanket fort. We were in complete darkness, except for the nightlight on the far wall.

"Got any plans?" she asked softly, stretching out on her side, resting her head on top of her hand.

"Not really, myself. What about you?" I replied.

"Actually..." Sasha began to say, getting that suggestive expression, that quirky way that she was able to glare, smirk or look surprised without even having a face.

She didn't have to finish for me to understand. I could feel myself blushing, my arousal sparking like the forerunner of a fire. Instinctively, I covered my errection with my leg, but Sasha noticed, of course.

"You don't need to cover yourself from me, baby," she purred, gently nudging my leg away. She blushed when she saw how aroused I was.

We moved into each other, embracing and quietly making out. I could feel Sasha's hand move down to my hip, then begin to push down my waistband. I wiggled in a little closer, so that my member was brushing up against her groin, as she helped me strip. She moaned, almost inaudibly.

My hand retreated into my sleeve, and I slid off my shirt, pushing it into the corner. I shifted, moving so that Sasha was pinned down under me, and I crouched over her, smirking.

She smirked back, whispering, "fuck me, daddy." I lowered myself, and we continued to make out.

Sasha's hands slowly fidgeted across my back as I began to tease, not entering, but grating against her.

She sighed quietly, and then got impatient. "Just fuck me! Please..." she hissed.

I obliged, and stopped the teasing. I slowly slid my hard shaft into her moist, tight core.

Sasha moaned softly, her arms tightening around me. "Oh fuck yes..."

I entered her all the way in, a rush of pleasure coursing through me at the feeling of her cunt tightening around my rod. I pulled out, just as slowly as before.

I thrust again, this time a bit faster. The ecstasy was even more intense. A moan escaped my lips, as well as Sasha's. She writhed feistily, whispering various curse words in Russian. I thrusted harder the third time, feeling her wet pussy sliding across my shaft and loving it. Sasha claimed my mouth in hers as we began to make out again, and I accelerating gradually with each thrust. Sasha bucked her hips in sync with me. She gave a small screech after a particularly hard thrust, but it wasn't enough to wake anyone up. 

"Harder!" Sasha hissed, crossing her thighs over the back of my hips. "Slam me with that thick cock of yours!"

I rammed into her as hard as I could, and she screeched again. " _Oh my fucking god!"_

"Fuck yes, bitch!" I added, thrusting again, feeling an almost overpowering hit of pleasure.

I recognized that feeling from the last time we had fucked, the sensations heightening in both of us. I felt pressure building up in my member, Sasha's cunt getting even tighter. We were near climaxing. 

Several more thrusts would bring us to the said climax, and I hit even harder than before. We still kept the volume of our moans and dirty language in check, so that we didn't wake up any of the inhabitants of upstairs. 

"Sasha, I'm gonna cum!" I almost-yelled after the final thrust. 

Sasha tipped back her head and gave a long, shuddering screech as I came into her and the climax erupted like an atomic bomb within us. I submitted completely to the climax, which felt so powerful it could kill me, closing my eyes and soaking it in. 

I flopped down on top of Sasha, panting from the exhilarating sex. After a while of sitting still, we turned over on our sides, and I pulled the covers over us, which had miraculously stayed dry. Sasha did a sleepy, contented  _murr,_ pulling herself closer to me.

"That was amazing," she whispered, stroking my cheek.

 


	14. The Haunted House

_Mike's pov_

Right away I knew something wasn't right when Will came upstairs from the basement. My mind flickered back to the night before. I wasn't even sure about what I might have heard, since like the night before last, the voices were barely vibrantions, but I had been sure that I could hear voices from downstairs, sometimes seeming to gain audibility, but they always sounded as though the owners of the voices were _very_ happy, quite pleasured. I had shrugged it off as just me hallucinating, since I had still been partly in the dream realm. 

But right away I noticed something was different about Will. He had a different aura, other than his usual innocent, gentle self that I couldn't quite discern. I decided to keep an eye on him, and at that moment, I noticed Will turn his head at a certain angle. I could barely see it, even from the right angle, but there were several small, reddish marks on the side of his neck. They were far from breaking the skin and were mere dents that would probably fade away pretty soon. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, but then I noticed that the dents in his skin looked like something that had been made by fangs, but what could have gotten at him? 

Of course. It must have been Sasha. The flickering lights hadn't been a dream, or the voices. She had been sneaking into the basement with Will; the marks on Will's neck couldn't have been in menace, probably just a slight graze from rough intercourse. I shuddered slightly. I hadn't gotten a great feeling from Sasha, and the possibility of what she and Will might have been doing down there didn't improve my disposition with her. I decided to approach Will about it, while he was still alone, in the hallway. 

"So, how was it?"

Will stopped in surprise, turning to look at me. "How was what?"

"You know what I mean. Last night," accusation edged my voice. 

Will still had his face plastered with a confused expression. "I still don't get it. What do you mean?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't give me that shit, Will. You were riding her like a rollercoaster last night, I'm sure of it."

Will's face contorted in shock, and a bit of unease. "Why the fuck would you think I did that?"

"I swear I heard voices downstairs. And you have a very suspicious mark on your neck," I pointed to the indent, and Will instinctively brushed his hand over it.

He got this weird expression on his face, sort of like that of a cat burglar that had been caught in a spotlight.

"I didn't do anything," he replied stubbornly, and I was amazed at how obvious it was that he was lying.

"Will," I chastised. "What is the number one rule of the party?"

"Friends don't lie," Will mumbled.

There was a long pause, in which we engaged each other in an intense staring contest. 

Will, bristling like a cornered wolf, finally snapped. "You know what? I did, alright? I fucked Sasha into an oblivion and I loved it! There, are you satisfied?"

I was a bit taken aback by his outburst, and wasn't able to find the right words to answer him.

"Just don't tell anyone, alright?" Will said, in a quieter voice. "I just can't have the rest of the party know, and my mom and brother have enough on their minds, what with our hiding from the Lab and all."

"I won't," I replied quietly. "Friends don't lie."

"Friends don't lie," he echoed.

Just because I had promised Will not to tell anyone about Will's night with his girlfriend from another dimension didn't mean that I wasn't going to tease him about it.

"Hey Will, I heard you were having a test in your health class. What's it about again? Human anatomy?" I kicked Will from under the dining room table, but I ended up smashing my knee into the underside of the table, causing it to shake violently, and everyone's milk or coffee nearly sloshed out of their glasses. My little sister Holly squealed indignantly, and my older sister Nancy mouthed "what the fuck?" to me. 

"Michael!" Mom barked at me for my disruption and rude joke, and Will snickered at me, kicking me back.

 Once breakfast had been finished and we dispersed to take care of our various tasks before leaving, I quickly brushed my teeth and went down to the basement, while Will hustled out the door, walking the shortcut to school since his bike was still at his old house.

Like I had been doing ever since El had disappeared, I entered the blanket fort, my two-way in hand. It was a sort of ritual thing I did, since maybe El might be trying to seek out me, by use of the blanket fort with her powers. I began to try to channel El, shuffling through all the frequencies, telling her that I hadn't forgot her, and that I wished she was there, and I did. With all my heart. 

On one frequency, there was a pause after my message, where the walkie-talkie went static for several moments, as though the person on the other end was about to reply. Then it went out. Oh well. Worth a try.

After I had finished my unsuccessful attempt to contact El, I jumped on my bike and started off towards school, thinking maybe I might overtake Will as he walked and give him a lift. 

I caught up with him at around three quarters of the way to school, and I gave an educated guess that he probably didn't want a ride. He was walking at the edge of the sidewalk, facing the woods. After a moment, I realized that a slim, tallish figure that was about a head taller than him walked close beside him, in the shadows of the trees. It was Sasha, judging by how Will walked with his arm draped around her waste, and she had her arm across his shoulders. Slut.

They were talking amongst each other, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Curious, I pedaled closer cautiously, hoping that he wasn't making too much noise. Unfortunately, Sasha had heard or somehow seen me, because she paused and turned to look at me, and I could have sworn that she wore an expression of contempt. Sasha signaled Will, also turned to look at me, looking peeved and uncomfortable at my arrival.

"H-hey Mike," Will said awkwardly. "Just walking to school..."

"Yeah. Hi, Mike," Sasha said, not sounding very enthusiastic. 

I got off my bike and began walking it once I was beside Will.

"Did I miss anything between you two?" I put just the right amount of accusation in my voice.

Will scowled at me. "Heaven forbid," he snorted sarcastically.

"No offense, but how's that any of your business?" Sasha added curtly, sounding a bit less friendly. 

"Because he's my friend," I snapped. "What's my best friend's business is mine too. That's how it works." 

"Okay then. Forgive me for asking, even though I barely even know you and you just barged up here out of nowhere."

"Let's just chill out and be reasonable, guys," Will said soothingly, attempting to abort the sparking rivalry. "Sasha's right, you did kind of just nose in all of a sudden and you guys aren't even aquatinted, but Mike is my friend, and he deserves to know what goes on in my life."

Sasha slipped behind a tree to avoid being seen as a car advanced down the road.

"Can I talk to Sasha for a moment? We'll catch up with you later," I asked Will, but not waiting for an answer, I followed Sasha behind the tree.

 "I'm sorry if I come off as a bit ungracious," I whispered to her, "but I really don't know what's the deal with you. Before, we had a nice thing going; me and Will were like peas in a pod, then he disappears to whatever hellhole you came from and all hell breaks loose with the Lab, and suddenly you're in his pants all the time, he's lying to me and being defensive, and he's basically breaking all the party rules. So please- whatever you're doing, stop. It's ruining our friendship."

Sasha waited for me to finish my long-winded reproof. "First of all, I didn't cause the problem. Hawkins Lab did. Second, I'm not in his pants all the time. If Will decides that he wants to corrupt your friendship, that's his call. I have no influence over that. No offense, but I can see why your friendship is jeopardized. You're an annoying ass."

"At least I know what it takes to be a good friend, and it's not determined by how kinky you can  get. I've been his best friend for years and years longer than you, and it will stay that way, no matter how much he loves you."

Sasha glared at me, but before she could fire off a retort, I stormed off. 

"See you later. I'm gonna be late for class."

When I was walking home from school, me, Will, Lucas and Dustin traveled as a group. It felt good that it was just us, without Sasha being added to the squad. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I appreciated her roughing up Troy and teaching him not to mess with our party, but other than that, she had only ruptured my relationship with Will. He didn't spend as much time with me, and if I so much as started to ask questions relating to him and Sasha, he'd get more defensive about it than a cornered alley cat.

At least Lucas and Dustin weren't part of the predicament. Or so I thought.

I found out that they were going to go vandalise the Upside Down with Sasha and Will on Friday, after school, which was tomorrow. They even had the audacity to ask if I was interested in joining them, as if I would ever participate in such bullshit, especially with Sasha. 

As we rode home from school, I thought about the offer Lucas and Dustin had made for me to join them. It gave me another idea. I certainly wasn't going to participate in the vandalism, but I might as well watch over my friends from a distance, just to be safe. That in mind, I returned home to play some D&D, feeling just a bit more in control. 

The next day was just like the last, with making inside jokes aimed at Will during breakfast, and then attempting to contact El, before leaving after Will, to find him walking with Sasha. We could have fought like cats and dogs all the way to school, but Will stood between us and wouldn't like that in the least, so we limited our vendetta to glaring at each other from across Will and whispered cusses and deragatory slurs. 

After we had dispersed among Maple Street, in Lucas and Dustin's case to get their survival backpacks and meet Sasha back at the border of Mirkwood, I slipped into the house to prepare. Joyce Byers and Mom were still home, but Mom was upstairs and Joyce was having an emotional conversation with someone on the phone, so I easily crept up to my room and got my survival backpack. On my way out, I swiped a pair of binoculars and a switchblade, just in case. 

It wasn't hard to track Dustin and Lucas, what with their loud conversation, tornadoes of profanity, and what sounded like them attempting to become fluent  in Caveman, and generally acting like idiots. Sasha was in for a treat with these doofuses.

I parked my bike just inside of Mirkwood, near Lucas and Dustin's, but carefully hidden. Sasha and Will, who was already with her, met them and made a portal to the Upside Down. I followed them stealthily through the portal Sasha made, hoping my passing through didn't trigger some biological alarm that would alert Sasha or any other residents of the Upside Down to my presence.

They went out onto the main road, where Cornwallis and Kerley meet, and traversed down Cornwallis, towards town.  
Once they reached the general store, Sasha went around back and returned with an armload of spray paint cans. Even from my distance, I could hear Lucas and Dustin's enthusiastic "awesome"s and "fuck yeah!"s. Lucas tentatively raised his spray paint can to the wall, and then yelped in surprise and nearly dropped it when he accidentally painted a bright red splotch on the wall, with a loud hiss of the chemicals compressing. Will said something to Lucas, then showed him how to do it without making a mess, not that tagging didn't create a mess in itself.  
The troublesome five spent a few minutes tagging up the sides of the general store with their initials or names, doodles and unattractive symbols; Sasha thought it would be a great idea to draw a pentagram on the wall- ritualistic candles and all- and Dustin made an attempt to draw Yoda. If I hadn't known Dustin since first grade, I wouldn't have even known what it was.  
After the tagging got old, Lucas and Dustin went into the general store to see if there was anything interesting to find inside, while Sasha and Will waited outside for them to finish, all the while being suggestive with each other, Will trying to outdo Sasha by "being taller" than her by jumping high enough that he rose a bit above her, which I didn't get, and generally screwing around and being airheads.  
The next place that they went to was a strip mall, which also fell victim to tags and general vandalism. They went in and when they returned, Dustin was stuffing money into his backpack, proclaiming that he was rich, which suggested that my corrupted friends had looted the cash registers. Once they had quenched their interest in the mall, they started making patterns on the parking lot with diesel fuel or kerosene, or whatever Sasha had swiped from the nearby gas station, and throwing matches on them. The fire would instantly fry the black vine things that snaked through the Upside Down, which would keel away with hissing noises. 

I tracked my friends all the way to the west side of town. On the west side of town, there was a park that was popular among Hawkins, only that very few people would venture to the back of it, because visible behind it was the old Massey house. 

The Massey house had long ago been abandoned, but it had a history for being the setting of murder, witchcraft, satanic rituals and the related, hauntings, and a whole list of nasty things from A to Z that had gone on in that house. There was a rumor that the priest had tried to exorcise the house, and when that had failed, tried to burn the house down, but no matter what, the fire wouldn't take. So, it had been boarded up and left to rot. 

I watched as Sasha and my friends wandered closer and closer to the park, until they had made their way onto the first hill. I hid behind a nearby tree, attempting to eavesdrop on them, but I still couldn't hear them. But I could see that they all had their eyes on the Massey house. 

_Oh shit please no..._

No silent begging of mine could prevent them from continuing to advance toward the creepy old house, after a deep discussion. 

I followed them across the park, darting from shadow to shadow, or hiding place. I finally stopped behind a tree near the porch, trembling with fear. 

"But what if we find like- a skeleton or something?" Dustin was saying uneasily.

"Dustin, stop being a pussy," Lucas grumped. "We're in this together, and we agreed to check out this place."

"I guess," Dustin agreed.

"This place really gives me the creeps," Will added.

He wrapped his arms around Sasha's waist, but this time it had no sexual intention; Will looked like a shy little kid clinging to his mother for a sense of protection and safety. Sasha ruffled Will's hair reassuringly and put her arm around his shoulders.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure nothing touches you."

With that, they went into the house. I waited outside for a few minutes. Surely they wouldn't hang around in such a creepy place for much more time than that, and I was prepared for Dustin to come tearing out, screaming that he'd seen a dead person. When nothing happened, I crept a bit closer. I was shaking like a leaf in the wind now. This place was creepy enough in the Right Side Up, but in a place like the Upside Down... I decided not to think about it. I didn't see how anyone in their right mind would go in there. 

I was prepared to go in and see if anything had happened to my friends, but I decided against that at first; they had a demogorgon on their side to protect them from whatever evils the house contained. After another few minutes it became unbearable. I inched towards the porch, tiny, furtive step by step. The house seemed to radiate coldness as I crept onto the porch. I was shaking with fear so hard you could hear it in each gasping breath I took. 

The front door, which was boarded up in the Right Side Up, had been reduced to a large ragged hole in the wall, as though a large creature had busted through the wall. Not a good sign. I entered the house.


	15. The Alternate

_Mike's pov_

I instantly regretted setting foot in that house. It looked like an abandoned funeral parlor/secret entrance to hell that had been left to rot in the Upside Down a long time ago, which it had. 

I forced myself to go forward, step by step, taking out my switchblade and flipping it open for comfort. Sometimes, the rotten floor boards would squeak under my feet, and I would cringe in fear. If anything was here, it definitely would have heard me. I stalked towards the kitchen first, deciding to start there, since the house was almost dead quiet, and I had no idea where Sasha and my friends where, because I couldn't even hear them. I was wracked with terror; with each step, I expected a zombie to emerge from the hallway or one of the rooms and eat me, or for a black-robed figure to pop out of the basement and whisk me back down there with him to use as a sacrifice for a satanic ritual. Or for an unfriendly demogorgon(not that I found Sasha any more friendly) to sneak up behind me or from the ceiling, with a hostile, chattering growl before dragging me off to god-knows-where. I could sure use a demogorgon to _protect_ me right now.

I made it to the kitchen without getting butchered or ripped to shreds by any of the said beasties, but I was still alert, and my flashlight beam wavered due to my madly shaking hand. I began to take in the kitchen with the beam of my flashlight. There was an old fashioned ice chest, that had black tendrils creeping up its sides, and a small island in the middle of the kitchen, above which hung pots and pans. In one room was a long table, so it was probably the dining room. I walked diagonally towards the mantle, and that's when I heard a soft, echoing sound from the dining room, like the sound of someone breathing. Curiosity got the best of me, and I went into the room to have a look. That's when I remembered- that was the sound that portals made, since they seemed to practically be living creatures themselves. 

There was a membrane-like mass on the wall, which emitted an orange glow. I could see that it had been disrupted recently, judging by the ragged hole torn in it. Then I realized: My friends had probably gone exploring here, discovered the portal, and decided to check it out. They couldn't be far from it. 

With the utmost caution, I pushed through the portal, cringing in disgust at the feel of its cold, slimy walls. 

When I stood up outside the portal, I found that to my surprise, I was not in the Right Side Up, although it could have been mistaken for the Right Side Up at first glance. 

It was certainly different that the Upside Down, in that the habitat wasn't in perpetual decay, at least from what I could see, and there were no black vines trailing around the walls and floors, or spores floating through the air, and it had a much dryer, arid climate. Although it was still very dark in the part of the house I was in, watery purple-indigo light filtered through the doorway and a few of the broken windows. Weirder yet, in some places, plants had grown up through the floor. And when I say they were weird, they were _weird._

There was a clump of vine-ish plants by the doorway that grew in a spiral pattern, so they looked like a bunch of green and dark blue trampoline springs. There was a sapling tree-thing that grew hunched over, with silver flowers growing off of it that looked like upside down umbrellas. I saw what looked like a pile of marbled cyan, orange and purple paintballs heaped near the middle of the kitchen, but on closer inspection, I saw that they were spherical flowers, or just one flower, of some sort that were anchored to the floor by a network of tendrils. Curious, I stepped on one of the flowers, hoping I didn't cause it to release noxious gasses or something. There was nothing but a muffled pop under my foot, and a greenish-tar colored liquid trickled from it. Unappetizing, but I decided it probably wouldn't cause me death from radiation. I moved on.

Outside the house, it was considerably warmer compared to the area near the portal, and the air was extremely dry. I could feel my lips getting chapped just from being out there. My throat was parched too, and I was grateful that I remembered to bring a water bottle. I reached into the side pocket of my survival pack and brought my water out of it, before unscrewing the lid.

I was about to chug some, when I heard a shrill  _hiya!_ to my left, sounding like it was coming from an old RV park, followed by screeching hiss. I nearly choked on my water and spilled it everywhere which would have been stupid thing to do in this arid place. I returned the water bottle to its carrying position. Being a logical person, I should have called up the party with my two-way, instead of just running towards the source of the ninja fighting sounds, but of course my logic side decided not to operate at that moment. 

I barreled through a thin stretch of woods that ran between the Massey house and the RV park. All the trees that existed in the Right Side Up were now dead and decayed, replaced by this alternate dimension's quirky flora, hoping I didn't run into any new monsters. As soon as I left the forest, I darted for cover behind an old Buick on the outskirts of the park to collect my bearings and evaluate what was happening. Once I decided that I had gathered myself, I risked a peak over the edge of the car's hood. 

The center of the trailer park served as an arena for a giant snake/dragon monster that I characterized as a drakon, from Greek mythology, and a smaller, dark figure that was at least five times smaller than the drakon. I quickly realized that the smaller fighter was Sasha, as she used a trailer as leverage to launch herself over the drakon's deadly maw and onto its head. 

I could see that Sasha had done her job in giving the serpentine creature its share of battle wounds. All around its face and neck, scratches and cuts marred its flesh, trickling dark blood, and its right eye was swollen shut from a nasty claw mark over the eye.

At first I wondered where all my friends were, and if they'd been eaten by the drakon, since they weren't present at the fight, or so it seemed. Then, a pebble came shooting out of the window of a rusty RV and beaned the drakon in the snout, followed by a loud "take that, fuckface!"

Lucas. So while Sasha engaged the monster in combat, Lucas and the others were helping their demogorgon friend by pelting ammo at it. 

In retaliation to the snout beaning, the drakon turned on Lucas with a malicious hiss, which distracted it from Sasha, giving her the opportunity to slash her claws down the serpent's larynx. The drakon arched its head and spat venom at the attacker, but Sasha expertly dodged it. A walnut came flying out of the window of the RV and bonked the drakon on the eye.

I could infer that Sasha's plan of attack was to sever the drakon's jugular vein, which would kill it in a matter of seconds, but the enemy seemed to know this, and was keeping its neck protected from the attacks. I watched as Sasha made a flying leap at the side of the monster's neck, but its head snapped around to face her with a hiss, and she barely avoided being bitten in half, landing in a tumble next to the drakon. With a swing of its foreleg, the drakon backhanded Sasha ten feet through the air. The demogorgon crashed landed through a window into an RV on the far side of the arena.

I saw that she couldn't go on like that much longer, no matter how agile she was. Sasha had been banged up pretty badly, with numerous cuts from the glass and a deep double gash on her shoulder from the drakon's claws. Without thinking, I drew the switchblade from my backpack and opened it.

The drakon tried to attack Sasha as she left the RV, but she dodged it again and somersaulted under the arch of its neck, rolling to her feet and clawing its side. The drakon turned on her again, snarling.

She jumped out of the way when it struck at her again, and then made another leap, this time for the top of its head. As the serpent raised its head, Sasha caught on to the serpent by snagging her claws on the bottom of the drakon's eye socket. Using that, she tried to flip herself ontop of its head, but Sasha misjudged and went sailing over the monster's head, tumbling to the ground beside it. She could have easily rolled out of the way, but then she saw me, and we made eye contact, or whatever she used to see.

A silent understanding passed between us as I cowered behind the Buick and, she crouched before the serpent. The drakon towered balefully over Sasha, while she stayed where she had fallen in fake terror, in a help-me-I've-fallen way.

The drakon had its full attention on Sasha, turning away from me and preparing to strike her, completely unaware of my presence. It's neck bent as it turned, the right side completely vulnerable to attack, which was just what I needed. Sasha may not have been able to kill the drakon alone, even with Lucas's projectiles, but if we worked correctly, it was possible.

I rushed at the drakon on silent feet, zeroing in on the indent between its windpipe and the side of its neck, where the jugular vein was located, pumping the vital blood through the serpent's body.  
Running at full speed, I left the ground in a flying leap, my switchblade raised high above my head like a sword. At the peak of my jump, I brought the knife down on the drakon's neck just as it was about to strike and kill Sasha, slicing through the scaly army-green skin and grey flesh underneath. A geyser of blood the color of gasoline shot from the fatal cut I had made. I dropped to the ground, still holding the knife, as the drakon whipped around to face me with a terrible hiss.

Sasha was on her feet in a thousandth of a second, textbook football tackling me out of the way just before the monster could sink its fangs into me. It's nose crashed into the ground with a puff of dust, right where I had been standing. The drakon raised its head to strike again, its glaring amber eyes into us. That action was never proceeded. Black blood was streaming, almost cascading from the gash I had made, pooling on the ground in front of it. Its legs shook with weakness from blood loss, and the drakon tried for a malicious hiss, but spat up blood. Then, it died and collapsed in a nova of sand, its wide open eyes staring off into nowhere.  
Lucas whistled softly. "Damn."

_Sasha's pov_

I stepped away from Mike, watching as the life faded from the drakon's eyes. We were both breathing hard, and Mike still sat staring at the monster's corpse

I held out my hand in an offer to help him up, but then shoved him back down when he took it. 

"You dumbass! What were you thinking?" I yelled at him. "You could've gotten yourself killed, wandering in here!"

"Why would you care if I die? Don't you hate me?" Mike stood up and brushed the dust off his shirt. He really was _stupid._

I sighed. "Yes I hate you and I want you out of my life, but I don't quite want you dead. I'm not that kind of demogorgon, if that's what you're thinking."

I heard the RV door open, and Will, Lucas and Dustin spilled out, and there was the initial excited chatter, and they began giving out high fives to Mike and I. 

Will ran up to me and gave me bone crushing hug, so strong I could actually feel my ribs bending. 

"Don't ever do that again!" He scolded me. "What were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed, taking on that monster! Do you think I would have been able to live with that?"

"Sorry..." I said, sounding like a guilty toddler.

"Just don't do that again. You scared me to death," Wil gave me another bone-crushing hug. I felt my bones crack.

Lucas held out his hand to Mike for a high five, but then jerked it back. "I'm not sure wether to tell you how awesome that was, or to be pissed at you for stalking us."

Lucas then clapped Mike on the back, and went to join the rest of the mob. 

"We need to go back to the Right Side Up. We might as well go back, even though you guys will probably get chewed out by your parents," I decided, and everyone seemed to agree, even Mike, who looked quite anxious and shaken, either from the fight or the thought of facing his family.

We started back to the abandoned house, keeping a careful eye out for any more monsters that might be willing to pulverize us, especially on our way through the woods. The dry, warm climate of this new dimension had gotten to me, and I was covered in dust and sweat from the fight, and I felt like a slug with legs. From what I could tell, it was probably night here, so daytime temperatures would probably be even worse. I didn't want to stick around to see.

I made a terrifying discovery. We went into the dining room where the portal was, or where it had been. Where the portal was, there was only peeling, dusty wallpaper.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god my mom's gonna kill me!" Dustin was freaking out, holding his head between his hands.

I stood still, staring at the wall.

 _"Khrosho..._   _trakhat'sya_ (well... fuck)," I said finally.

We were gonna be here a while.

 


	16. The Creek

_Sasha's pov_

I know what you're thinking: Sasha you dumbass! Couldn't you have just made a portal back to the Upside Down or Right Side Up?

I'm not that airheaded, if that's what you think. Making a portal certainly did cross my mind.

For one thing, portals are very energy consuming, and I was already tired from the fight with the drakon and just being in such a warm climate. If I wasn't careful, I could kill myself by draining energy. Next, If I wasn't able to generate enough strength to get us from the Desert Dimension(which was what I had had dubbed this place) to the Right Side Up, we might end up in the Upside Down. That could be even more dangerous there, with Hawkins Lab prowling around.

 After I had gotten over the initial fright from the disappearing portal, I remembered that I could just make a portal. 

I could sense that everyone else had recovered too, and were probably expecting me do do something besides stare at the wall and curse in Russian.  
"Stand back, I'm going to open a portal," I said.

I placed my hands on the wall and summoning up my energy, I channeled it at the wall, focusing on forming a gateway. I felt a pulling sensation within me, which always happened when I made a portal, but nothing was happening, except it looked like I was trying to push the walk down.  
I continued to try, but I could feel myself draining quickly. I was breathing hard and shaking with effort. The amount of energy I was channeling should have been able to make a portal the size of Hopper's state trooper, but not the slightest tear appeared in the wall. My energy spent, I collapsed to the ground, sweating and breathing hard.

The party crowded around me in concern and interest, all but pig-piling me.

"Sasha? What happened?"

"Are you okay?"

"Why aren't you able to open the portal?"

"Great, I get to spend my life in this god forsaken place."

"My mom's gonna kill me!"

"Is she dying?"

"No, dumbass, she's just drained, like... Eleven."

I recovered enough to sit up. I held my face in my hands for a moment as I regained myself.  
"I don't know what the hell happened," I said quietly. "I don't think it's possible for me to open a portal in this dimension... I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have had us go in here."

"Yeah, Sasha," Mike replied in a snarky voice.

Will glared at him. "It's fine, we were all in on it, and we wouldn't have known what was going to happen."

"Do you think that there might be another portal somewhere?" Dustin asked, and began to dig through his backpack before producing a compass.

"Maybe," I replied, standing up. "Using a compass is a good idea, but we have no idea how far away a portal might be, if detected by the compass. I don't think it's a good idea to go wandering around in the night, given the inhabitants that this dimension contains."

"Yeah, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to spend the night in this place, even if we're not searching for a gateway," Dustin argued.

"I agree with Dustin," Mike added. "We're even more vulnerable to attack when we're asleep, and our way out might be closing at this moment. Besides, I don't want to spend all night listening to you two-"

Will viciously kicked Mike in the ankle to cut him off before he could say anything else revealing.

"Bur if we stay in a sheltered place, then there's less of a chance of monsters finding us, versus blundering around in the dark, looking for a portal," Will said, in favor of my opinion.

"Let's do a vote," I decided. "If you want to look for a portal, stand by Dustin. If you want to wait until morning, stand by me."  
There was a shuffle of feet as everyone went to their side of choice. 

Dustin walked over to join Mike, and Will scooted closer to me. Lucas stood in between us in indecision, then walked towards Dustin and Mike. Suddenly he stopped and pivoted, turning back to our side.

"I have to agree with Sasha and Will," he admitted, "but first thing when we wake up, we go out and search for a gateway. Have I made myself clear?"

We all agreed, Mike and Dustin grudgingly.

We decided that for the night, we would stay in the RVs at the park, since the Massey house was off the list for obvious reasons, and it would be too dangerous to blunder through the darkness to the nearest houses. 

Behind the RV park was a creek that ran through the woods, which  opened up into quite pools at some sections. Since I felt like I had trekked through a sandstorm after running a marathon, I decided to cool off in the creek.

To make sure that the water wasn't actually cyanide or acid or something, I threw and poked sticks into the creek. Then I threw rocks. The liquid acted like any regular river water: it splashed everywhere in a silvery froth and then rippled, before settling again. The rocks and sticks didn't disintegrate or float, or anything else unusual, so I stuck my hand in the water, then quickly pulled it out. My hand didn't burn up or dissolve, and the water felt nice and cold against my skin. I tentatively stepped into the teal water of the creek. After an hour in the heat and dust of the Desert Dimension, the cold of the creek felt like heaven on my skin. 

The pool quickly got deeper, and I submerged myself as I got deeper into it. Underwater, it was even more vibrant than from above, the water casting web-like ripple patterns on the rocks below. At the very bottom of the natural pool was an area of pale sand. I dove to the bottom and alighted on it, sand unsettling and puffing out from under me like slow motion novas. 

I turned over on my back, using nearby rocks to hold myself down so I didn't float back up. The trees around the creek towered above me like skyscrapers, and the sky far up was a royal-lavender color, filled with bands and swaths of light blue, mauve and silver. I couldn't see any moon or stars from where I was.

I could have stayed in that creek for the rest of my life, become the water monster of the creek, but for obvious reasons, I couldn't. So I got out a while later. 

I went to the RV that Will was staying in for the night, and paced around outside for a minute while I dried off. Even though I liked cold water, Will probably wouldn't appreciate me being with him in bed if I was cold and soaking wet. Fortunately, I dried off quickly in the warm air.  

I entered the trailer through the side door, closing it carefully behind me. It was a bit dusty inside, and it looked pretty much the same as it would in the Right Side Up. The bed area at the other end of the RV, and I could see Will's form sprawled out on the top bed, by the window. 

When he heard me enter, he turned and faced me. "Hey, Sasha. How was the creek?"

"It was nice. Beats the heat of this place," I replied, climbing into the bed. 

Will put his arms around me. "You still feel cold."

"I do?"

"Yes. I'll warm you up."

Will pulled the blanket over us and enveloped me with his warm body, which was a bit difficult since I was a head taller than him. It didn't matter though, and I warmed up to acceptable temperatures fast.   


	17. The Search

_Sasha's pov_

When I became conscious again, the first thing that I was aware of was that I was lying in bed, with Will still enveloping me with his body. His arms were curled over my tummy and chest, and I could feel him breathing contently on the side of my neck. I smiled, and put my hand over his, snuggling deeper into Will.

When I had finally come to complete consciousness, I saw that I was still in the same EarthCruiser RV as the night before. _Blyad'._

I hoped that it was just a dream, and that I would wake up in the Right Side Up, with everything back to normal and our trip to the Desert Dimension nonexistent. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. 

As I stepped outside, the balmy morning air whooshed in my face. I decided just to ignore how uncomfortably warm this place was. Lucas and Dustin were already outside, talking over their plan of action and messing with their compasses. They looked up as Will and I left the EarthCruizer. 

Lucas cocked an eyebrow. "You guys were in there together... all night?"

"Yes," Will replied, becoming awkward. "Why?"

"It's a bit strange, I guess," Lucas replied. "I didn't know you _liked_ her."

"Oh. I guess it was better that way."

"It's fine," Dustin supplied. "She's pretty cool, you know."

At least two people weren't looking at me and Will like we were morphing into Thessalhydras because of our relationship. 

I heard the sounds of a loud squabble over by the body of the drakon. During the night, a pack of some type scavenging animals that looked like a cross between geckos and kingfishers, and were the size of middle sized dogs had found the drakon's carcass and were still in the process of tearing it apart when Mike came out of the Winnebago that he had been staying in. 

At the sight of the gaggle of scavengers, he startled, with a disgusted _ughh._

The scrappers looked up in curiosity at Mike as he walked past, their large, bronze eyes wide, their faces soaked to the crest of feathers in the drakon's black blood. One of the gecko-kingfisher beasts took a step towards Mike, in an advance to investigate him.

Mike wasn't having any of it. "Ewww!" he grouched at it, then, "get away from me!" when it came closer.

Mike bolted across the lot with a yelp of fear, even though the creature was a mere ankle-biter of a scavenger and couldn't have caused him much harm, even if it wanted to.

All of the mutated beasts looked up in bewilderment at Mike's reaction, like "why are you acting like someone's trying to throw you in a wood chipper?" before deciding to ignore his antics and continuing to minimize the drakon carcass.

By then, everyone else was laughing. 

"Mike! You're such a wuss," I giggled.

He glared at me. "Well, I don't have bulletproof skin, or talons and a face that opens up! I thought it was going to tear my eyes out."

"The only thing those ankle-biters could tear out is your shoelaces," I smarted.

"Well, I'd like to keep my shoelaces, thank you very much," Mike decided, which provoked even more giggling from his friends. "Let's just stop screwing around and get going."

We set off in a northeastern direction, after everyone had gotten out their compasses, and Dustin had finally finished fighting with Lucas about whether or not his compass was broken. Dustin was in the lead, followed by Mike, Lucas, Will and me, in a messy line. While the others focused on following the directions of their compasses, I my role was to protect the party from any potential attacks made by monsters of the Desert Dimension. 

By mid-day we were nearing the far outskirts of town. So far the day had been dry, warm and otherwise tortuously hot in my standards, although it probably wasn't that bad to my human friends. We stopped outside a disused thrift store and sat on a porch while we took a break. Me, Will and Lucas sat against the wall, and Mike and Dustin leaned against the porch beams across from us. Dustin had brought a bunch of snacks in his backpack, which he dispersed among the group. They were still hungry though, and we went to raid the nearby supermarket. 

Like most places in the Desert Dimension, the supermarket was neglected and dusty. In the produce section where the fruit had been kept, all of the vegetable matter had long since rotted, but in some places, sapling trees were growing out of the mess of rotting fruit. This place was fucking weird. 

"Whoa, is that even possible?" Dustin admired a small tree growing out of a heap of desiccated apples.

"Apparently," I said, shrugging. "You never know what can happen in this place."

After I had done a patrol of the place and seen to it that there were no monsters or other threatening nasties lurking about, I let the others do their own thing and go collect the stuff they wanted, with the exception of Will. We retreated to the far side of the store, which went unnoticed by everyone else, since Lucas and Dustin had gotten into a rotten-salad green throwing fight near isle one. We leaned against a shelf of cake mixes, while quietly listening to the sounds of the salad war.

Will put his arm around me. "I know this is going to sound crazy, but this is actually kind of fun," he said.

"If you ignore the unbearable heat, then yeah, I can see where you're going," I agreed. "Never knowing which monster you're going to face at the next turn, trekking through wastelands and expanses of abandoned town. No one around except for each other."

"Yeah. Sometimes you need a break from the world around you, and all the people that you have to live with," Will said, nodding.

I put my arm around his shoulder and ruffled his hair. "There's always a time when you want the world to just butt out of your life."

"Except for certain people, of course," Will smiled and put his other arm around my waist.

"You know, it is quite convenient to get you all to myself," I purred in response.

"Yes, especially around this time," Will responded in a seductive tone.

He leaned into me and claimed my lips in his, and we began to make out, still monitoring the salad fight and making sure no one was moving our way. I put my arms around Will, pulling him close. He began passionately kiss my neck, his hands moving up and down rhythmically across my chest. It was all I could do not to moan and draw the attention of the rest of the party. By the time we finished, we were both blushing deeply as though a wildfire had raged in our blood. We walked furtively out of the isle and went separate ways, Will going to help the others collect food and other stuff, and I went to get water from where the store had kept jugs of distilled water. After we had done this, we met up at the front of the supermarket and left. 

By nightfall, we had followed the compasses completely out of Hawkins. We had followed a road that seemed to go approximately in the direction of the compasses, and ended up in another town, called Woodbrook, that according to Lucas was linked to a larger city. We didn't try to find the city though, and we decided to stay for the night in a small neighborhood. We chose one of the first houses that we could find that wasn't run down, and was a nice size to accommodate us on our travels. 

As soon as we got in, I did a patrol of the house to make sure there weren't any unsavory animals hiding out there, and we chose which bedrooms out of the main bedroom, two other bedrooms and a guest bedroom, we wanted to stay in and got ready for bed. When that was done, me and Will waited around for Dustin and Lucas to stop screwing around and go to their rooms before we went to the guest bedroom, which we were sharing. I could tell Will was having a hard time keeping his clothes on before then, and I observed that he already had a tent in his pants, and I too was feeling very wet thinking about what we were about to do. 

As soon as we were in the room, Will shut it and locked it.

I smirked. "Looks like I will be getting you all to myself tonight."

"You sure will, baby. And I'll have you all to myself," Will grabbed me around the waist and pinned me to the bed. 

My hands crept under his shirt and slid it over his head. I rolled us over on the bed, so that I was over him.

"Nuh-uh. I'm still on top," he said, wrapping his leg around my thigh and turning us on our sides.

"We'll see about that, babe," I replied, sneaking one of my clawed fingers past the waistband of his pants. "By the time I've stolen all your clothes."

Will gave me a devious smirk. "Not if I steal them first." He batted my hand aside and completed the action, stripping completely.

I blushed, putting my legs around his waist. "Well someone's very happy tonight." 

"So is another certain someone..." without warning, he grabbed me below the arms and flipped me on my back.

"Hey! I wasn't prepared," I protested.

Will smirked again. "Always be prepared."

With that, he crouched over me, pinning me down again and pressing his lips against mine. I accepted, and we began to passionately kiss. Will broke away and moved slowly down my neck, like we did in the store, but more aggressive, kinkier. He was searching for my weak spot, a sensitive area that would make me cry out in bliss and beg. That spot happened to be on the side, near the jugular area. His lips found that area within a matter of seconds, and I sighed in ecstasy, my claws clenching into the mattress under me. 

"Oh god..." I moaned softly.

"Looks like the demogorgon is becoming a bit turned on," Will smiled. "It's about to get a whole lot better..." 

He pressed the tip of his member against my horny entrance, just enough to spark me a bit more. When I writhed and moaned, he pushed it in a bit further, still teasing me. We continued to make out deeply, his hands sneaking away from my arms and pressing down on my chest, sliding back and forth in a slow, erotic rhythm. 

"Oh daddy..." I moaned, bucking my hips slightly.

"What was that?" Will asked sassily.

"Please, daddy, fuck me with that thick, hard cock of yours," dirty language poured from my mouth.

"Be my bitch."

With that, he shoved the rest of his length into my core. I gasped in pleasure, and Will moaned, although not to loud. It was just as powerful and good as before, if not better, although nothing beat the first time, even though that hurt a bit in the beginning. Will slowly pulled out, then started to slowly thrust. I was a moaning, horny mess, splayed out as Will fucked me like no tomorrow.

"Harder, daddy," I whispered into his ear.

"If that's what you want..." he pulled out far and slammed in hard, and I let out a small screech. 

He became harder and faster with each thrust. It felt like my cunt was becoming Nigaria Falls with my lust, as I clenched down on Will's shaft. 

"Fuck yes..." I moaned, putting my arms over Will's shoulders and bucking my hips with each thrust, loving the feel of his member stretching my pussy with each entrance.

"Ooh Sasha, I'm gonna cum!" Will whisper-yelled. 

It was all I could do to muffle my cries of bliss as the stronger sensations of pleasure exploded within me as he came closer and closer to my g-spot. At last, I was unable to muffle a small cry of sheer ecstasy as we both climaxed at the same time, I could feel Will's seed flooding deep into me as the hit began to dissipate. For a moment, we only lay spread-eagled on the bed, regaining our breath. 

"That was amazing," Will said at last.

"Yeah, it was. Let's do it again," I agreed. 

Just like that, we were doing it again, and Will was pounding into me as hard as he could. I was surprised that we hadn't woken up Mike or any of the others, or even attracted their attention. Right now, I didn't care. We had our burning lust that needed to be satisfied. The air around us was turning even more hot and balmy than usual from our activity.  

"Mmm yeah," I sighed drunkenly, as we began to advance on the second orgasm. 

"Talk dirty," Will ordered between breaths.

"Ohh Will, fuck me with that big cock of yours, fill me with your seed! I'm your whore, daddy," okay, that probably would have gotten the attention of at least someone, although I did keep my volume in check. 

"Ahh, hell yes!" Will hissed as the climax overtook us again, by this time I could feel his seed leaking out of my core.

We paused, like the first time while waiting for the orgasm to wear off, then starting again. We climaxed twice more before deciding to stop. We turned over on our sides, facing each other. I tucked my head into the curve of his neck, and he pulled me closer. 

"Love you, Will," I whispered.

He kissed me on top of the head. "Love you too, Sasha."


	18. Guess Who's Back

_Dr. Brenner's pov_  
The room was completely dark, except for the electric white glow of the computer screens. I sat in front of the middle one, watching intently, listening quietly to the sound coming through the headphones I was wearing, my hands on the controls, making adjustments when necessary. At my sides sat other agents, watching similar screens and manning controls. 

The controls in question were for miniature helicopter-drones, that really looked more like something you might see in Star Wars shrunk down to about the size of my hand and looked like sort of like a kid's remote control toy, except way more sophisticated in appearance and in reality, but they served their purpose; they acted like mobile surveillance cameras in the Hawkins area of the third dimension, since they had built-in cameras and microphones. 

At the time, the drones were in use, their cameras trained on a group of foreign explorers to the third dimension- four kids and a creature like the monster from a year ago.

Right away I could tell she wasn't the one from last year, she was much too small and more feminine, and never made any move to harm the kids. She even seemed to be in a tight relationship with one of them, Will Byers, who I knew from last year as the kid who had been abducted by the monster, ironically. Sasha, as I had heard the monster being called, had a good understanding of the English language, as well as Russian, and would spew some colorful Russian curses on a regular basis. 

_I feel like I've seen her before..._

I briefly thought of a test subject from a few months ago, a creature from the Upside Down that had been identified as a demogorgon. I hadn't partaken in the test initially, since I was still recovering from my duel with the first demogorgon, but I had returned and worked with my secretary, Sam Owens when the test subject was more developed. I had arrived only about a week before she changed.

I had seen the creature as she changed from her infant stage- a salamander-like creature about the length of one foot with no tail or face- to a more child-adolescent stage. I remembered how her skin had split, and a larger creature had crawled out. That's when she became near uncontrollable. The test subject resembled a small, hunting panther with bulletproof skin and a face that opened up, who spat vulgar English or Russian at me or anyone who tried to conduct tests on her. She could only be handled if she was restrained or under sedatives, and still she managed to tear half of an agent's arm off. 

The test subject was a fast learner, and just as quickly as she had studied us humans' verbal communication, she discovered that she had some degree of telekinesis, or otherwise an ability to create tears in time and space, and she escaped into the Upside Down.

Now, I wondered, was this Sasha the escapee from the Lab? She certainly didn't act so much like the little velociraptor-ish, wrathful wretch that had escaped the Lab.

I recognized all of the kids. They were the mob of troublemaking brats from last year- Will Byers, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Mike Wheeler. And now they had a new addition to their gang of rug rats: Sasha the demogorgon.

Through the drone I piloted I saw everything- during a patrol I chanced upon the demogorgon and three of the kids leaving the old Massey house, later followed by the fourth, Mike Wheeler. I had watched them fighting a giant serpent creature in the RV park, Sasha engaging it in some acrobatic combat, the other three pelting it with projectiles. Then Mike arrived on the scene and Sasha distracted the serpent so he could kill it. I had watched them going to rest in a few of the mobile homes, and through the window of one I could see Will and Sasha sleeping together, although I couldn't see how someone could trust her enough to sleep with her. 

I returned the next day and watched them as they journeyed east through Hawkins. I observed them as they stopped outside a thrift shop, and then went into the nearby supermarket. I had carefully flown the drone in after them, through a window and eavesdropped as they raided the place, three of them throwing fruit at each other, while Will and Sasha sneaked off to a far aisle and made out, and then followed them undetected as they left Hawkins and stopped for the night at a house on the outskirts of some neighborhood.

Through the window, I watched as  Will and Sasha then proceeded to enter a room together and have sex. Typical kids these days. They thought they were rebelling and looking cool by fucking at a young age, even though all that would usually do is make the partner pregnant. Will probably thought it was an upgrade that he was getting laid by a potentially deadly monster from another dimension. 

I reguarded the footage in contempt, as they finally finished, and went to sleep, holding each other close. I couldn't understand why this particular demogorgon would decide to treat Will like he was her soulmate or something, yet she had killed off over a hundred of men from Hawkins Lab, as I had heard, and on top of that, her species was notorious for being very badly disposed and ruthless. I felt a twinge in the left side of my face, where my eye should have been. When I was attacked by the demogorgon, it had simply mauled me in a rush before continuing, and not killing me. It had torn out my left eye in one brutal slash, and where it used to be was an empty grey socket and four deep, purple scars that ran from my forehead, across my eye, to my jawline.

I sure could have used some of the affection that Sasha was demonstrating to Will at that time, instead of that demonic tornado of talons and death that had nearly killed me at the school in Hawkins.

But that didn't matter. I watched the computer screen as Will curled tighter around Sasha. They were headed in the perfect direction to fall right into my control.

_Will's pov_

I woke up to the sound of someone pounding on the door.

"Stop screwing demogorgons and get up, Sleeping Beauty," Mike's annoyed voice came through the door.

I surpressed a complaint at that, and Sasha grumbled quietly in annoyance, as we reluctantly unwrapped our arms from around each other and got up.

"Last night was amazing. Thank you," Sasha purred, hugging me.

"Yeah. It was the least I could do, when you saved me from Hawkins Lab, let me stay in your bunker and sleep with you when I got drunk, break my family out of the Lab and show us a good time in the Upside Down," I held her close, the side my face pressing against her breast.

I began to grate my cock against her entrance, causing Sasha to gasp a bit and blush. 

"Please, daddy," she said quietly.

I smirked, briefly kissing her and then letting go to begrudgingly get dressed and stepping out into the hallway.

Lucas, Dustin and Mike were already there, waiting for us, which didn't make things any less awkward, especially when Lucas asked,

"How was it?"

"How was what?" I played dumb.

"Come on, Will. You get an erection whenever you're around Sasha. You two seemed to be having a good time."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Don't encourage them Lucas."

I probably had my panic face on, and Sasha fidgeted, because Lucas reassured us, "It's fine, we know you went in together and we could hear a bit of it, but as long as you guys are having fun it's chill."

"Um, alright. Yeah, it was pretty good," I agreed, not quite as uncomfortable. 

Dustin nodded in agreement to Lucas. "But just how is it possible for you to have intercourse with a demogorgon?"

"Dustin!" Sasha scolded, blushing, and Mike kicked him in the leg.

"Just asking," Dustin mumbled. 

"Let's just leave, this is making me sick," Mike said, and walked towards the stairs, and we followed him outside.

Behind the house, we discovered another creek like the one by the RV park, with crystal clear-aqua water. Sasha had said that the water was pretty much the same as that of the Right Side Up, and it was at least safe to be in, although she didn't know if it was safe to drink. Since we were all dusty and sweaty from our expedition, we took a quick plunge in the creek to wash ourselves off. I kind of wished that we had raided somewhere with clothes when we stopped at the edge of Hawkins, but we would probably get another chance to do that later in the day.

I picked up my compass and quickly checked the needle's direction and adjusted myself so I was facing in a northeastern direction before starting off with the rest of the group.

The sun, or whatever star that lit the Desert Dimension, was rising quickly, depleting the blue shadows of the trees and houses and vaporizing the dew. I'm sure Sasha would be thrilled about having to trek through the beating sun.

We started off, mostly silent except for the odd comment or joke from one of us, since we wanted to keep quiet and avoid any possible attention from other monsters.

We emerged on the other side of the neighborhood and stopped at an outlet mall, so we could raid it for clothes that weren't covered in dust and didn't smell like my gym clothes. We continued on, out eyes glued to our compasses, relying on Sasha coming to our defense if something attacked us.

The compasses lead us into some sort of rainforest, like a giant oasis, but we couldn't see any lakes. The sand turned from Mars-russet to jade green with swirls of dark purple. Some of the trees looked about thirty times as wide as I was or bigger. Many of them wore a carpet of multicolored moss- forest green, teal, magenta, amber. There were very weird looking trees. Some looked like a mass of fifty foot tall green and brown corkscrews. I passed one that was a mass of little slender trunks twisted together into one massive tree, with ginger leaves that looked like little umbrellas. Strange sounds echoed through the forest, rapid succession clicks sounded from above, something chattered behind us, and there was a distant howl. The branches of the treetops fanned out, blocking out most of the sun and casting plenty of relieving shade, but still green light filtered through. Sasha visibly relaxed, and let out a small sigh of contentment at being out of the harsh sun. She was getting quite tan from it.

The undergrowth was thick, but there was enough space that we could walk through without trouble. I watched my compass as the needle wavered, depending on our direction as we maneuvered around trees and bushes.

From behind there was a sudden scuffle, a hiss of fear and a loud _"blyad!"_ from Sasha. 

We all spun around. Sasha had been caught midstep, her leg engulfed by some sort of cylindrical formation of roots woven together.

"Dumbass fucknugget!" she hissed and clawed at it, trying to get out, but the roots were unaffected by her attempts.

Lucas and I rushed towards Sasha as she struggled to escape the clutches of the alien plant. Suddenly, something rose from the ground around her and the plant. They looked like giant mossy tulip petals, that had been bent backwards on the flowers, and were bending back again. Closing around the flower.

I realized too late what was happening, and I skipped to a stop on one of the petals with a yelp. Lucas flat-tired me trying to stop, and the petal thing began to lift us off the ground.  
"Oh shit!" Lucas squealed.

"Will! Lucas! Get out of there!" Mike yelled.

Our need for silence was forgotten as yells erupted throughout the forest.

When we were lifted into range, Sasha lunged forward, and pushed us backward off the petal.

"Get away! You're only going to endanger yourselves!"

I sprung off the mossy ground and grabbed one of the petals and tugged it back, but it only dragged me forward, as it stretched upwards, enclosing Sasha like a bug in a Venus flytrap. I screeched like a capuchin monkey getting its limbs ripped off and threw myself at the petal again, pulling with all my strength.

Suddenly Sasha stopped trying to pull herself out of the root contraption and froze.

"Wait a minute..."

Looking quite abashed, Sasha bent over and pushed the root cylinder downwards, so it scrunched off her leg like a Chinese finger trap, and she stepped out.

The petals were pointed at the forest canopy as I saw Sasha's fingers hook around the top of one of the petals and she used it to flip herself out of the giant, carnivorous flower.

"It's just like a Chinese finger trap. I can't believe I didn't notice that," Sasha said, flicking a piece of moss off her shoulder.

I held her in a brief hug. "You crazy-ass demogorgon. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed."

"I'm not planning to get myself killed just yet," Sasha ruffled my hair.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Will you guys stop flirting and focus? Sasha nearly got eaten by a giant Chinese finger trap/Venus flytrap thing!"

"So? We all know now that the Chinese finger traps in this neck of the woods will eat us. Let's just move on," Sasha retorted, exasperated.

"Just move on? Are you insane?" Mike yelled.

"Quiet down!" Dustin chastised him, but was ignored.

"Who knows what will attack us next?" Mike continued. "We were lucky this time, but who knows what will happen next? What if the roots of that tree come to life and strangle us? What if the ground turns into a giant mouth and eats us?"

"What if something finds us and kills us because you won't shut up!" I finally exploded at Mike. 

Something white and the size of a baseball crashed through the canopy and almost cracked my skull open on its way to the ground, causing us all to jump back in fright. 

"Is that a..." Dustin began, looking at the object, which was a ball of ice, but was cut off when three more balls of ice fell through the canopy. I noticed that the sky had become dark and cloudy.

"Hail," I finished. "Run."

We didn't need to be told twice. We took off running at full speed as more icy projectiles fell through the canopy upon us. I pulled my backpack over my head to prevent getting a concussion, which I saw the others doing too. 

We ran blindly, trying to escape the hail in vain, our eyes peeled for anything that could serve as a shelter from the wrath of the hail.

I gasped desperately for air as I ran. I could feel my muscles getting weaker, and my throat burned. In a distant clearing, I suddenly noticed something. It was a structure- a watchtower. 

I put on an extra burst of speed, closing the distance between me and the clearing. To us, this was a gift from the heavens. We broke the cover of the trees, and in the open, the hail was even stronger. I could feel it pounding my backpack like a hundred angry fists. 

Sasha beat Mike to the watchtower, and lead the charge up its wraparound stairs. She barged through the door and held it for the rest of it, then slammed it. There were collective sighs of relief and silent rejoicing. We listened to the sound of the hail pounding on the roof and the stairs of the watchtower.

_Dustin's pov_

I took in my surroundings.We were in some kind of entry room. The floor was tiled, and the walls were metal. The ceiling wasn't very high, it was only about a couple of feet above Sasha's head. There was something I thought was off about the room, but I couldn't put a finger on it. Then I realized- the room was pristine. No dust, as though it was regularly swept, or any funky plants growing between the tiles. Odd.

"Hey guys, don't you think it's strange how good a condition this place is in? It's like someone's taking care of it or something," I said to the others.

"Yeah..." Mike said, looking around the room. 

I opened the next door, which lead into a dark, windowlessroom in the center of the building, which seemed really un-watchtowerlike. At the other end of the room were at least two dozen computer monitors. Many were powered off and a few were static, but some showed scenes of the abandoned towns and the forests. Someone was definitely here.

"Wait a minute..." 

One of the monitors showed the entrance to the clearing, which we had just come through. 

I realized that the monitors were showing the feed of surveillance cameras, even though I had seen none. There was one in the foyer area, as I could see on one of the monitors, that I had missed.

I turned my attention back to the one in front of me. Once, I had learned how to go through the feed on a surveillance camera and watch it, so I simply backed out of the surveillance mode and went to  the feed selection. Out of curiosity, I went to the feed taken the day we went into the Desert Dimension.

At the beginning of the day, the video feed was only of what I believe was footage taken from a drone as it flew above a large forest, patrolling. We didn't want to watch that for the rest of the day, so I decided to fast forward to the time when we came into the Desert Dimension- around five thirty in the evening.

The camera showed the park, woods, and the Massey house from very high up. The drone seemed to be making wide circles around the area when four figures emerged from the house. The drone stooped into a dive to get a closer view of the intruders. It showed Sasha, Will, Lucas and me. It trailed us as we left the estate and wandered through the woods. It recorded us as we entered the RV park and began to tag it up and generally screw around, and then the drakon burst out of the woods and attacked us. Sasha flew at the giant serpent and attacked in a flurry of rage, clawing one of the drakon's eyes.

The drone proceeded to eavesdrop on the battle of Sasha and the drakon, assisted by Lucas and his wrist rocket projectiles, then shifted to a new position to watch Sasha while she was in the creek after the drakon had been killed and we had gone into the abandoned RVs for the night. I didn't feel like watching the feed of yesterday night, so I skipped forward to the next day. I skimmed through most of our travels, since that would take too long to watch. At one point, I accidentally skipped to last night, when Sasha and Will were having "fun". 

"Oh shit, no, no, no!" Lucas and Mike yelped, jumping back and covering their eyes so that they didn't have to watch the zesty surveillance feed unfolding on the computer screen.

"Shit sorry," I mumbled, skipping to the morning.

Sasha and Will blushed as though a wildfire raged under their skin, looking at the floor guiltily like a couple of naughty little kids who had been caught robbing the cookie jar.

As we finished the feed, we all shared the same emotions of shock, violation and anger. What pervert was so ignorant to peoples' right to privacy that they would feel no shame in just stalking them with a drone like this? Will couldn't even screw his girlfriend from another world without being eavesdropped by some perv with a drone fetish.

"I see you have found the surveillance footage," came a familiar voice from behind me.

We all spun around. Standing in the doorway that we had come through was no other than Dr. Brenner. His expression was impudent and petulant, there wasn't a spot on his white coat, and he stood with a posture of authority. The only thing that ruined his appearance was the deep purple scar trickling vertically down the left side of his face, and the empty grey eye socket. 

"Aren't you a bit late for curfew?" he asked sarcastically.

A squeak rose in my throat, and Sasha growled.

"What do you want with us, you _hooy morzhovy?"_

Dr. Brenner raised his eyebrows. "I thought was time I was an _ublyudok."_

"You're a bastard too," Sasha snapped. "A slimy, arrogant bastard."

I wanted to ask Sasha how she knew Dr. Brenner, but I knew that now wasn't the appropriate time.

Dr. Brenner gave her an insolent look. "Really? Well, I'm happy you think that. Anyways, it's quite convenient that you children would be so kind as to pay me a visit. Now, I would like to invite you to come with me."

It all happened in a matter of a second. With a snarling screech, Sasha flew at the scientist in a blur of rage. At the same time, Dr. Brenner had been prepared for an attack, and whipped a small metal box out of his pocket as Sasha left the ground. It was a taser, I realized, and before I could warn Sasha, he fired something that resembled an electrical current at her. With a screech of pain, Sasha collapsed and tumbled to Dr. Brenner's feet. Small strings clung to her skin, and she groaned in pain, rolling over.

Will gave a pained cry and tried to charge Dr. Brenner, but Lucas and Mike held him back so he didn't get the taser treatment too. 

"That was not a request. That was an order," Dr. Brenner said sternly, and planted his foot on Sasha's shoulder and shoved her down as she tried to get up. "I suggest you behave yourselves."

A moment later, a group of agents burst through the side door, standing at ready and waving guns at us. Dr. Brenner motioned to one of them, who then took out a syringe and bending down over Sasha, injected the contents into her neck. She growled and cursed, trying to swipe at the agent, but she had already become groggy. 

Sasha slumped to the floor and her body went limp. The rise and fall of her chest as she breathed slowed down dramatically. 

"Take then to the testing containment," Dr. Brenner ordered.

A couple of the agents herded us out the door, their ominous artillery doing most of the work, while the rest bunched around Sasha and began talking indistinctly among themselves, pawing and probing at the drugged demogorgon's inert body. Will growled, his face contorted with rage and hatred. At one point, all of the agents burst out laughing, presumably at something funny that someone had said, but Dr. Brenner shushed them.

"Leave the specimen alone. I want her in good condition for testing."


	19. Nightmare Serum

_Sasha's pov_

 My brain was muddled as I woke up. I shook my head to clear out the clamor as I came to completely.

I was lying on the floor of a cell. The back wall and both of the side walls and the floor were padded with what seemed to be grey gymnastic mats attached to the surfaces. The front wall was padded too, except for a large metal door with a window with wire mesh. The ceiling was metal too, and had a vent attached to it, supplying me with oxygen, and of course a security camera in the corner. Built into the ceiling were white fluorescent lights. I hate those things so much.

And- what was that on my neck? I sat up and pawed at my throat, discovering some sort of collar. The collar was attached to my neck with a wide metal band. Pressed against my throat was a small metal box, so that it resembled a tracking collar. Strange. I typically would have expected an implant, rather that a collar. Whatever the reason, the collar would be the first thing to go. 

I began feeling for the clasp, if the collar had one. I felt something in the back of my neck, but it was diminutive and I had no luck releasing it, so I decided the collar was probably electric release or something. I decided to focus my attention on the metal box. With luck, if I destroyed it, I might release the collar or at least mess up whatever tracking device it contained. 

I began to tear at it with my claws, but didn't seemed to be making any progress. Annoyed, I clawed harder, ripping at the metal device. The next second, I had doubled over on the padded floor with a squeal as the sizzling pain of an electric shock coursed through me. What the hell would have caused that? Then I realized that it must have been the collar. I was wearing a shock collar. The slightest mistake could zap me like a squirrel on a transformer. I probably wouldn't be busting out any annoying-ass fluorescent lights anytime soon. 

Whoever was controlling the shock collar, presumably Dr. Brenner allowed me to cautiously stand and go up to the window without turning me into electric-fried chicken. When I looked out, I found that I was looking at the hallway, or an isle. Across the hall from my cell was another row of cells, the one right across from me labeled Containment 123. At first, it looked empty, but then I saw a shadow moving behind the window. A moment later, I saw Will come into view. Desperate to get his attention, I banged on the door. I cringed, hoping I hadn't pissed anyone off. 

It did the trick, though, and Will's head snapped up. He pressed himself against the window, his large ebony eyes were wide with confusion and fear. I put my hand on the window and peered through the bars out at him longingly. He mouthed something to me.

_I love you_

The window's view was suddenly engulfed by a neat white lab coat. Outside, I heard the faint sound of an ID card being swiped through the scanner, then there was a loud click in the door and it opened. I quickly backed up as Dr. Brenner let himself in.

He took a small control device out of his pocket and hung his hand at his side.

"So you're... friends with Byers, are you?" he asked.

 _Foolish geezer,_ Ithought, _you have no idea._

Aloud, I said, "how's that your business?"

Brenner ignored my question. "You're barely four months old. You are too young for that."

I suppressed an indignant hiss at his comment. It was true, I had been born only a few days after the main portal between the Upside Down and Right Side Up had opened, and if I were a human, I would have been no more that an infant. In the Upside Down, it was different. Such a world held no mercy or forgiveness for an infant, so my species had evolved so that an infant in the pollywog stage could mature into the adolescent stage in not much longer than a week. After that, the individual would remain physically an adolescent for more than a decade, and then age at about the same rate as humans do. Dr. Brenner had no business telling me what I was too young to do. 

I stepped back and crossed my arms. "You're not my dad."

Dr. Brenner looked annoyed. "I never said I was. And I didn't come here to talk about your not-having-a-daddy issues."

I really wish you humans would stop bringing up the fact that my parents had disappeared after I was born. 

"I in fact do have a daddy. He's Will Byers."

Brenner looked like he wanted to bitchslap me. "I mean the other daddy that you _don't_ have sex with. Besides, I don't have time for this. Hold out your arm."

"No. Leave me alone," I crossed my arms stubbornly.

"I am tired of your games, monster," Dr. Brenner gritted his teeth. "Hold out your arm. Now."

He pressed a button on the control and a tingle ran through me. I obliged and held out my arm so I didn't get in even deeper shit.

The head scientist produced a syringe from his pocket, containing a violet-indigo liquid and pulled the cap off the needle. Unease whispered up my spine at the sight of it. I flinched at the feeling of Dr. Brenner's hand closing around my arm. He turned it slightly, and then injected the liquid into my shoulder muscle. I hated the sight of needles entering my skin. First, it dented downward where the needle was pushing it, and then it sprang back into place, and I could feel my muscle engulfing the intruding instrument.

A cool sensation spread through me. 

"Sweet dreams," he said, stepping out of the cell.

I could still see Will's face pressed against the window, his eyes saying worry and apprehension.

 

A syringe buried itself in my shoulder muscle with a nauseating sting. I tried to twist away, but I couldn't move, as though I was bound down, and I merely performed a straining writhe. A second syringe plunged into my neck and injected something that burned as it coursed through my jugular. Another needle sank halfway up the needle in my left breast.

"Stop! Please, end it!" I rasped as invisible hands stabbed more syringes into me.

I squirmed and hissed in pain, seeing double, violent colors blooming in my vision, the colors of the countless substances being injected into me- fierce green, honey orange, fire red, ultra-violet. A cacophony of chemicals flowed through my blood. Some burned and I could feel them melting me internally, sensations of pleasure like that of heroin or ecstasy, others made my skin buzz or made me lightheaded. I moaned and screeched, willing for the pain to stop.

Then something came into my muddled, kaleidoscopic field of vision. It was another syringe, this time much larger than the others. The fluid capsule was the length of my body and contained a purple liquid, the needle longer than my legs and some of the liquid dripped out of it. I yowled, trying to leap away as it shot through the air at me, but I could only manage to weakly flounder. There was nowhere for me to escape to.

A bolt of pain, stronger than any electric shock shot through me as the giant needle was thrust into my sternum. My ribcage momentarily bent inwards, then snapped back into place with a sharp crack and a wave of pain. I felt the needle sliding through my chest cavity and enter my racing heart, pumping the purple chemicals into it, chemicals that burned like lava in my blood and made my head spin. I coughed and retched, spitting up holly berry-colored blood and colorful serum.

The invisible hand controlling the syringe didn't stop after that. The needle sheesh-kebabed me as it skewered my heart completely and began to push out my back. I felt one of my vertebrae shatter as it plunged right through me, and by then I was howling at the top of my lungs in excruciating pain and horror. And then the wasps came.

When I was barely two months old and had recently escaped from Hawkins Lab, I had been exploring the woods by the quarry, and discovered what I thought was the tallest tree in the forest. I proceeded to eagerly clamber to the top, so I could see over the rest of the forest. Being a stupid little kid, I didn't care or know to check my surroundings, and when I got near the top, I was given the "pleasant" surprise of a bigass paper wasp nest. Wasps are notorious for being bad-tempered assholes, and the ones in the nest I had accidentally disturbed were no exception.

Their stings hurt worse than any needle piercing my skin, and I sprained my ankle and nearly broke my arm when I scurried headfirst down the trunk of the tree like a squirrel, then made a flying leap for the ground when I was still ten feet up the tree. For a few moments, I lay on the ground in a daze. The wasps had swarmed after me all the way down the tree and didn't lay off even after I hit the ground, they spiraled about me and darted in to savagely sting me. They didn't let up until I had limped all the way to the lake and plunged in. Ever since then, I had a huge phobia of wasps. I simply could not be within five feet of one without abruptly flying the coop.

I shrieked in mortal terror as the wasps surged down upon my syringe-covered body, day glow yellow and jet black bullets of excruciating pain, with long amber legs that dangled. These ones were at least twice the size of a regular wasp, with stingers the size of sewing needles.

White-hot bolts of pain crackled all over my body like a bunch of firecrackers going off as the wasps swarmed over me and settled, stinging mercilessly, pumping me full of their venom.

 _"FUCK BEING ALIVE! FUCK EVERYTHING ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING SHITHOLE OF AN EARTH! FUCK MY MOTHER FOR BRINGING ME INTO THIS FUCKING PLACE!"_ I screeched at the top of my voice as the pain stormed inside of me like a nuclear explosion. 

An acrid scent wafted around me, followed by blueish-silver smoke. Suddenly, columns of fire shot into the air, vibrant scarlet and sunset-orange with bands of blue flickering through the flames. It was almost beautiful.

The heat of the fire stole my breath and caused my skin to blister, and then it took on me, as the flames licked my body. My skin blackened and peeled away like wax paper beneath the harsh tongues of fire, exposing dark red muscle that dripped blackened blood and colorful serum, causing the flames to sizzle. Then the my muscle blackened into ashes, exposing my bones, which too began to blacken. The pain was white-hot and raging like the fire, and the whole time I was screaming and shrieking, crying out for it to all end, but it wouldn't. The flames only closed over me, sealing me in a sarcophagus of hellish amber and red. 

I was back in my cell. I cautiously patted myself and inspected my body from top to bottom. There were no syringes stuck in me, or wasps, or any evidence that I had been burned. The pain was gone.  I stood up and looked out the window. I couldn't see anyone in Containment 123.  

Something moved outside my window, in the hallway, a shadowy figure that lurked just outside the field of vision from the window. The skin on the back of my neck prickled as though the wasps had returned and were crawling around on my back. I felt myself bump into the padding of the back wall and I realized that I had been backing up. 

I heard the sound of an ID card swiping through the scanner outside, and the door clicked. Instead of someone opening the door and entering in a mundane fashion, the door flew wide open and hit the wall so hard it was knocked off its hinges. The shadowy presence stormed in. I realized, with a start, that it was a demogorgon, presumably the one from last year. This time he was at least twice his original size and height, which was a lot to say, seeing as he was originally over seven feet tall and he had to crouch to enter. It didn't make me feel any less like a midget. 

Another drastic difference was that his contour consisted of what appeared to be stormy ashes and soot, that would swirl around his body like an aura, and he kept fluctuating from a bodiless, massed-together storm in the shape of his body to a solid form. I tried to make myself unnoticeable, shrinking into a corner, but he had already seen me. He snarled, his voice first disembodied, then he became permanently solid, his sinuous back arching, frosty silver and dusky black patterns still swirling slowly in his skin. 

He reached out to me, his huge talons extended. I leaped aside and terror, trying to dart around him, but the demogorgon reacted  quicker than I could evade him and spun around, cutting me off. He let out a deafening, angry screech, causing the room to vibrate. He swiped at me with his powerful hand, walloping me across the room like a cat toying with a mouse. I hit the back wall hard and slumped to the ground, my head spinning. I was too dazed to resist as he dragged me towards him by my leg.

I trembled in fear as the sinister member of my species loomed over me. Was he going to kill me? One blow could shatter my spine like a matchstick, or he could just rip me to shreds with his huge talons. He might drag it out, and toy with me like a cat playing with a mouse it had caught, at any moment deciding to chew its head off and feast on its flesh. 

The demogorgon seemed to look me down from head to toe. What was he doing? He then placed its hand on my chest, which was big enough that it nearly covered my entire chest. I prepared for him to push down and for the rapid fire crunches of my bones snapping, but he didn't. He gave a low, triumphant growling noise. Then his hand began to move.

My face burned with shame as he rubbed and massaged my chest, a shame that I hadn't felt before. Only Will was allowed to do that. I hissed and slapped at his hand, but I only managed to dislodge a small cloud of ashes, which soon rejoined his body. The demogorgon ignored my pathetic attempt at fighting him off and continued touching me. 

I felt something brush against my entrance and I knew what it was before I even looked down. My attacker's shaft was much too large to fit in me, yet that didn't seem to bother him, as he got down on his knees and putting his hands on my shoulders, lined himself up and thrust into me. I couldn't stifle a shriek of pain as he forced his cock into my much smaller cunt. He couldn't even fit much more than half of it. 

I could feel him tearing me inside as the demogorgon continued thrusting, indifferent to my screeches of pain and wild thrashing. I could feel blood trickling out of my cunt from around his length, spreading on the floor. I felt a pang of guilt as strong as the pain of being raped. Would Will think I was cheating on him? Technically I was, but only against my will. I thought of his face peering across the hallway at me, his adorable brown eyes wide. I would never cheat on him.

Blood had been smeared and spattered all over my stomach and in between my legs, and I let myself flop limply on the ground, groaning and twitching when it got especially painful. Finally, the demogorgon was satisfied as he came into me, flooding my pussy with seed that spilled out onto the ground. 

He pulled out of me, and I lay weak with pain and shaking on the ground, blood still pooling out of me, my vagina damaged beyond repair. 

"Please. Stop. Just go away," I moaned as the demogorgon continued to tower over me. 

He didn't, of course. He gave me another violatingly close observation and traced his claw across my chest, making me shiver. He then put one hand on my throat and the other he positioned on my chest. I saw his talons press into my skin, and then he tore. I heard the sound of skin and bones ripping before I felt the pain. 

I saw the demogorgon's talons push into my skin and tear deep, ripping my chest wide open, as though someone had done a very crappy autopsy on me. Bone shards went flying through the air like broken piano keys as my chest cavity was laid open in shreds. I felt a wave of pain rip through me like a lightning bolt and throb like the most painful heartbeat. I screeched, but my voice was already hoarse from screaming, and I sounded like an angry crow. Liquid gurgled in my throat and trickled between my face petals, and I knew it was blood. I gagged, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

I tipped my head downward, beholding what used to be my chest. It looked like I had been blood-eagled from the front, the two arching halves of my ribcage split and jutting out at my sides. My sternum was completely lost, judging by the splinters of bone that littered the ground like broken glass. Nestled between the two halves of my ribcage were my heart and lungs. I could actually see my own organs, exposed to the outside world. I vomited more blood at the sight.

Each breath was a battle, the air stung as though I was trying to inhale nettles and my windpipe made an odd whistling noise. I watched my lungs, or rather one, a long, large mauve sack of air that expanded and deflated rapidly. The other was limp and deflated, as it had evidently been torn when the demogorgon had torn me open. I watched my heart as it pulsed frantically, the round, violet-maroon muscle beating rapidly as it tried to pump blood through my body, blood that was only pooling onto the ground.

The demogorgon began to lose his solidity, ashes flaking away from his contour and beginning to swirl through the air, until he dissolved back into a storm of ashes that whisked back out the door and dispersed. I was indifferent to him leaving through the haze of pain that muddled my thoughts.

I was lying on a metal table. I felt the cold metal bite on my arms and legs of clamps that held me down on the table, and of course there was one of those fucking fluorescent lights overhead, because evil scientists who work at secret government agencies love their fluorescent lights.

I was no longer covered in blood. My chest was no longer split wide open, and my cunt no longer felt like I had been raped by a psychotic chainsaw. Then something moved just out of the radiance of the florecent light. 

It was Will, I realized, as he stepped into the light. He was much taller, and he wore a lab coat and surgical mask, but I recognized him instantly.

"Will?" I said, confused. 

I realized instantly that something was off. Will gave no reply, his face expressionless. I couldn't see the slightest bit of fear, confusion, remorse or even a sadistic look as he picked up a scalpel. I knew instantly what was going to happen.

"Will? Will! Talk to me!" I yelled, but he gave no reply.

"Stop! What are you doing?"

Will ignored me and pressed the scalpel into the base of my sternum and made an incision from there to my hip line. I had become sort of used to this sort of mutilation to some degree, so I didn't quite screech like a cat getting thrown in a blender. I had _really_ begun to hate seeing my own entrails. 

Ignoring the blood that poured from the incision like a creek, he picked up a surgical saw and positioned it on my chest before digging it in and dragging. I heard the sound of bones crunching like a hundred snail shells being crushed. 

Suddenly, with a scream that could have sent a xenomorph running for its mother, another figure came flying across the room at Will, slamming into him and knocking the saw out of his hand. It was a demogorgon, and it took a moment to realize that she was in fact me. 

I saw my clone lift Will up by the neck and slash her claws down the side of his face, ripping off his mask and leaving his left eye a shredded mess of white and red. Will cried out in terror and pain, gasping for air while spitting out the blood that trickled into his mouth, and then shrinking back to his original size.

My clone growled and threw him against the file cabinets. Will crashed into them and fell to the counter with a groan. His attacker immediately pounced on him and pounded her fist against his chest,  causing a loud cracking noise. His chest was bent inward like someone had pounded it with a sledgehammer.

Will turned and looked at me as my copy clawed him mercilessly, a look of desperation etched in his remaining eye.

"Sasha... help me," he gasped, his arm reaching out to me.

"Will, no!" I screeched, straining against the clamps as I watched myself take his arm and snap it.

His shriek of pain was more than I could take. I screeched in anguish and rage, pulling against the clamps as hard as possible, oblivious to the fact that I had been cut open and I was bleeding to death. 

"No! Stop it!" I yelled at my clone as she dragged Will off the counter and slammped him onto the ground. She paid me no attention. 

"Sasha!" Will cried out again. 

I heard a growl and the sound of clothes and skin ripping, followed by another scream. I thrashed against the clamps on my limbs. 

"Will, no! Please no!" I begged, still struggling, thrashing wildly to escape.

 _"SASHA!"_  a sudden pain stung the side of my face as a sharp slap was administered to the side of my face, and a jolt went through me.

As the hallucinating clamor in my mind cleared, I found myself lying on the floor of my cell. I was flopped on my back, and the padding on the wall and floor had claw marks and gashes in it. I was shaking and I felt like all of my energy had been drained from me. Will was looming over me, and my head was on his lap. Apparently he had been given permission to come into my cell, or was this another effect of the drug I had been injected with? I decided not, since I felt as normal as I could, given the circumstances, and I wasn't hallucinating myself dying in a ghastly, morbid fashion.

"What the hell was happening to you?" Will asked, distraught. "I can't imagine what they could have loaded that serum with."

"I can't imagine either. I had some... very disturbing hallucinations," I replied quietly, my voice hoarse from screeching and yelling. 

Will curled his arm around my shoulder and stroked the side of my face with his other hand. I wrapped my arms around Will and hugged myself against him, Will held me tightly against his body. I cherished the feeling of touching something, rather someone, who was solid and real and wouldn't be whisked away from me to make way for a different nightmare.

"Yeah. Whatever it is, it sounded absolutely horrible. You were thrashing and clawing around, and I could hear you calling my name," he said, looking at me empathetically. 

Will put one arm under my thighs and the other under my shoulders. He then picked me up and set me on his lap, and I nestled into him, wrapping my arms tightly around his torso, letting myself sink into his lap. Will had lost his original clothes and was wearing a blue-white lab gown, I noticed, but I didn't care. I buried my face in his chest, trying to forget the nightmares of seeing myself burning to death or getting cut open, or hearing my bones crunching like eggshells.

Then I felt Will's arms closing around me, hugging me close to his body. He stroked the side of my face and kissed me on top of the head. I internally smiled, feeling a wave of love and calmness pass through me. I tucked my head under his chin and leaned into him. Everything would be fine, no matter what would happen next. We still had each other.

I could feel the slow, gentle throb of Will's heartbeat through the fabric of his lab gown. It gave a calming lull, and my heartbeat in turn was slowing down, matching his. I could feel myself sinking far into Will's warm embrace, into the  inky darkness of unconsciousness. 

I woke up some time later. Will was asleep, leaning back against the wall, holding me in a sleepy embrace. My left leg had fallen asleep too, but I didn't want to stretch it out and wake up Will. He was alluringly cute when he was asleep.

I could see at least a couple figures standing outside my cell and I could hear them talking. 

"And what other tests were you planning?" someone asked.

I heard Dr. Brenner's voice. "Oh, for the monster it'll probably be drug tests mostly, some ability tests in there too somewhere. For the kids, probably just some mental tests and stuff, a bit more mundane. I think I'll test them for psychic abilities too."

"Oh. Ok then. They are quite a bunch, aren't they?" the other guy said. "They were the last mob of kids and monsters that I'd have expected to pop up in our watchtower, don't you think?" said the other guy.

"They're quite a nuisance if you ask me, Valequez," Dr. Brenner said abruptly. "Or at least they were. I have them under high-efficiency containment. The only thing I don't get is the thing with Will and his monster friend, Sasha."

"Yeah. Aren't they the most unlikely couple? It's pretty strange, you wouldn't expect a demogorgon to be that tight with a human, would you?" Valequez agreed.

"Personally, I wouldn't have thought that her kind could be bonded to anyone. The monster from last year seemed to just want to kill and wreak havoc. If you ask me now, I'd say they're a couple of teenagers," was the reply.

"I don't know. They seem to be in a very strong relationship, given the circumstances of their... differing species. Have you seen them?"

I could see them moving up to the window and peering in. I pretended I was still asleep. 

"I did see them," Dr Brenner agreed. "Will slapped Sasha."

"He obviously seemed to do that only to wake her up. The drug was too strong for her to wake up on her own, or with lighter probing. And it doesn't seem to have hurt their relationship," Valequez answered. 

There was a long moment of silence, probably as Dr. Brenner wrote down the observation.

"You saw Will just as I did," Valequez continued, "when Sasha started hallucinating, or whatever was making her screech like she was being tortured to death. Will nearly broke his neck and arms trying to break out the window and get out when it started getting bad. When you gave us permission to let him in Sasha's cell, Agent Spencer had to taser him to keep him under control."

"And what's your point?" Dr Brenner snapped, getting impatient.

"My point is, what if they're not just kids these days being kids these days? What if they're more... connected, for lack of words?" Valequez responded.

"Yes, they are just kids these days. They're exactly that, except for the monster, and even she acts like your average teenage girl if you think about it," was Brenner's curt reply. "And even if they weren't, it doesn't matter. They certainly make for interesting test subjects though."

The two men walked off down the hallway. I felt Will shift against me. I looked up at him, and I realized he was awake too, and had clearly heard the conversation.

"What do you think they're gonna do to us next?" Will asked anxiously, instinctively pulling me closer.

"I don't know," I stroked his hair out of his face, attempting to be reassuring, but we both knew that wouldn't solve anything.

There was nothing to do but wait and see.


	20. Memory

_Johnathan's pov_

I swear to God I'm gonna kill Will for this.

First, he got abducted to the Upside Down for an entire week back in November, and he nearly fucking died when the demogorgon finally caught him and put some sort of vine down his throat, and then, not much longer then a week ago, Will disappears for the second time, Hawkins Lab shows up at our house, tricks us into letting them put us under arrest and everything goes to shit. A few days later Will turns up with his friend Sasha the Russian demogorgon and breaks us out. Now Will has vanished for the third time, and not just him, but the rest of his friends too. 

When this happened, I tried to make contact with Sasha and see if she might know about it, but she appeared to have vanished without a trace too. That wouldn't be so strange, her being a demogorgon and residing in the Upside Down, but she hadn't left the Upside Down as far as I know since Will and his buddies disappeared, and evidently she used to visit the Right Side Up on a regular basis. I knew that putting up more missing fliers would be no help, since I was sure he wasn't even in this dimension. With nothing else to do, I contacted the local demogorgon busters, Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler, and we met at the park. 

"So, you're saying that your brother has been abducted three times by now, and this time you think he's with a demogorgon?" Steve said incredulously after I had explained everything to him and Nancy. "Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?"

"All this stuff was going on and you never even told us?" Nancy added. 

"Look, I'm sorry, I know I should have told someone, but I just couldn't get to it. It's just so... personal. I thought this would be the last of the abductions," I apologized.

"You can tell us anything, man," Steve reassured him. "You aren't alone here, we're your friends. We all know what it's like to be attacked by a demogorgon."

"But Sasha couldn't have attacked them," I reasoned. "She helped Will escape when Hawkins Lab invaded Cornwallis and Kerley. She broke me and Mom out of Hawkins Lab, and when they caught us again, she turned herself in for us."

"Woah, slow down," Steve stopped him, "why is Hawkins Lab suddenly involved in everything? I thought they were shut down."

"It's a long story," I said quickly, to avoid having to go through the lengthy process of explaining everything to them. 

"Johnathan, it doesn't take a genius to know that this demogorgon Sasha is most likely at the bottom of this. I think we all know to never trust a demogorgon," Nancy added. 

I shook my head. "I just don't think it's her. If she wanted to abduct my brother and his friends and use them for God knows what, she would have done it before, and she wouldn't have helped us get away from the Lab."

Steve and Nancy seemed to consider this.

"Have you told Hopper yet?" asked Nancy. 

"I think my mom has. At first, we just thought he and the others were just staying over at the Hendersons' or the Sinclairs', but now we all know," I lamented.

"We want to help you find your brother. I want to find my brother too, even if he's an ass," Nancy said softly. "So how about this, if Hopper isn't any help, we all know where the bear traps and the baseball bat are kept."

_Will's pov_

I was being lead down the hallway. My bare feet slapped against the floor as I was lead deeper into the maze of corridors. I looked back over my shoulder, getting a final glimpse of the outside of Sasha's cell. I wished I was still with her, holding her close. At least then I could see that she wasn't subject to anymore of Dr. Brenner's torture. I wished even more that we had never come here in the first place. 

Dr. Brenner and his assistant led me briskly through another hallway. Lining the sides were cages containing the alien creatures from the Desert Dimension. The smaller ones were stacked on top of each other on the left, and the larger and presumably more dangerous animals had their own metal cells on the right.

Upon our entrance, a few of the inhabitants of the smaller cages began to get excited. Their strange chatters echoed around the hallway, and one made a noise like a wolf howling through a kazoo. Many watched us quietly, or reached out boldly through the mesh at the front of their cages with their forelegs or whatever appendages they possessed. 

I noticed that just as many were lying lethargically on the bottom of their cages. One of the creatures was banging its head over and over into the side of its cage. Some were sitting in a daze or pacing restlessly, and a few were lying on their backs or twitching in their sleep. I realized with a start that like Sasha, they were all being used for drug tests and whatever other cruelty Dr. Brenner had in mind for them.

Something caught my eye. In a cage near the end of the hallway, a creature lay sprawled motionlessly. It's body resembled that of an iguana's, but it was somewhat bigger, and had fluffy mottled russet and moss-colored fur or feathers. The tail was long and sinuous, covered in scales or skin and banded with bright and earthy colors. It snaked limply about the cage behind the alien like a half unraveled rope.

Its face was flat and owlish, the alien's mouth was hidden by a large clump of tawny whiskers. Instead of having two large eyes, many smaller eyes sat in the place of two, metallic blueish-silver in color.

The eyes may have been once been bright and alert, but now they were glassy and emotionless, the alien seemed to stare right through me. A black substance had trickled out of the corners of some of the creature's eyes, and I knew without a doubt it was dead, obviously due to some deadly chemical that had been tested on it.

A chill went through me. How long would it be until that was Sasha who was lying dead on the floor of her cell due to a deadly drug? Or me, if Dr. Brenner decided he wanted human test subjects, or any other member of the party?

"Keep moving. "We haven't got all day," Dr. Brenner's assistant barked at me, and I realized I had slowed down and was staring.

We stopped in front of another metal door, because this lab-place really loved its metal doors. Dr. Brenner swiped his ID card over the scanner next to the door and it clicked open. Inside, it looked sort of like a doctor's office, like where you go to get an annual checkup or something not serious treated. It was much bigger though. On one side of the room, there was a counter with a short row of cabinets above it, with diagrams of the brain tacked to the wall, as well as yes, of course, a test table.

The other side of the room was much larger, and the centerpiece was a huge tube full of water, that greatly resembled a cryostasis chamber. A metal staircase lead up to a wide catwalk that was attached to it, and the chamber was seemingly monitored by a large control panel off to the left. Several other monitors sat on a table at the side. 

"I'm not going in there," I said after one look, already guessing what Dr. Brenner had in mind. 

"You will do as I say," he replied curtly.

Dr. Brenner had me change into some kind of white bathing suit before his assistant lead me up the staircase and onto the catwalk.

From below, he looked up at me. "When you are in the deprivation tank, think of anything. It can be a memory, a person, or a thing. It doesn't matter. Hold on to it and focus."

With that, his assistant nudged me, and I stepped onto the ladder that descended into the tank. As it lowered into the warm, body temperature water, another agent secured a watertight helmet over my head and shoulders.

The water engulfed my body, and I felt a brief sensation of panic. I forced it down and calmed myself. Then, Dr. Brenner pressed something on the control panel and a black sheath slid across the outside of the tank, completely covering it. Everything went dark and numb.

 

_I was lying on a hospital bed, looking at my reflection in a mirror that was being held up for me to look into. I was very startled to see that the face that looked back at me was not mine but Dr. Brenner's. For some inexplicable reason, my surprise and horror didn't seem to be present at the time in that situation. My face and chest were a mess of mending scars, many showing ugly stitch marks, as they were clearly deep enough for me to need stitches. The worst part was my left eye. In its place was an empty purple-grey socket, with stitched lacerations all around it._

_I could feel the horror chattering through my mind at the sight. The monster had done that to me?_

_"I'm sorry, Doctor," the nurse told me. "The scars will soon heal and some of them are shallow enough to fade, but we couldn't do anything for your eye."_

_It was all that monster's fault, I knew. I wouldn't be in this damn hospital having myself getting sewn back together with the exception of my eye if it wasn't for it. But my fight with the monster was over, it had been killed. Blasted to ashes as though it had said something disrespectful to an impetuous god and had been punished for its mouthiness._

_Our only connection to that dead dimension was the gate that had been opened in the deprivation lab, and so far we had seen no more baddies and beasties from that dead place, apart from those sinister black vines. But still I had to wonder... what if there was more? What if that dimension wasn't completely devoid of life?_

 

_The memory changed. I was in a cell of some sort. It was sort of like my cell, except it was taller and wider, and the lighting was dimmer. The floor was hard instead of padded. At the far side of the room was a metal frame cot, the only piece of furniture in the room. I wasn't the only one in the room. In front of me stood Sasha._

_Only it wasn't Sasha. Apart from the face that she was at least a foot shorter than me and_ _was lacking the scar on her shoulder from the battle with the drakon, she physically looked the same. But her demeanor was nothing that I had ever seen directed at me. Her fists were balled and half lifted, as though she were about to take me on in a fist fight. Her shoulders were squared and her pose was tense. She seemed to scowl at me._

_"What do you want?" she spat, her face half open._

_I saw her take a furtive step backwards. Then another._

_I wanted to question her, to ask her why the hell she was acting like this. But I couldn't. I wasn't even in my own body; I was seeing through the eyes of Dr. Martin Brenner._

_The left side of my face was numb, and I felt like my field of vision should have been wider that it was. It was because I was missing an eye, from a nasty near death encounter with the demogorgon. There was a weight in my hand, and I knew that it was a sedative gun, in case the demogorgon specimen resisted or became violent. I thought back to the time when I sent an assistant to her cell to get her for a radiation test, and she had torn half of his lower arm right off, first cowering passively into the wall, then attacking savagely when he came close._

_Since then, I knew never to trust_   _the specimen, never to turn my back on her, never to confront her unprotected, never to let her think that she could rebel._

_I felt myself take a step up to Sasha, my hand tightening on the pistol._

_"I need to run a blood test on you. Come here."_

_"And what if I decide not to let you?" the stubborn demogorgon crossed her arms and took another step back._

_"Then I will tranq you and then do the test. It doesn't matter to me if you're knocked out or standing there sneering like a bratty teenage girl," I felt myself saying._

_I happened to know that splitting headaches were a side effect of the sedative that I was carrying, and apparently the specimen knew it too, because she sighed in annoyance and reluctantly held out her arm._

_"Fine then. Get it over with."_

_I took an empty syringe out of my pocket and uncapped the needle, then took her arm and pushed the needle into her skin, and the syringe began to fill with blood._

_When I was done, I taped a patch of gauze padding over the tiny puncture wound to stop the bleeding. I emptied the blood from the syringe into a vial and capped it, before putting both in my pocket._

_I felt my hand reach out to the test subject. She leaned back nervously, I could almost feel her heartbeat increasing as I set my hand on her shoulder. I wanted pull my hand away and step back out of personal space as far as possible, if my touch was causing her to recoil in apprehension like she did. But I couldn't. It wasn't even my own memory._

_"You are a wonderful specimen," I told the said demogorgon._

_I lifted my hand and caressed the side of her face. She leaned away._

_"If I'm such a wonderful test subject, then why am I being imprisoned here? Why are you constantly sticking needles in me and taking my blood or putting chemicals in my blood? Ones that hurt, ones that make me feel sick, ones that make me hallucinate?"_

_I felt myself considering her question for a moment before answering, "because that is how we are learning about your kind. You are shaping history, my specimen. With your help, we might find a cure for cancer."_

_By "helping", Dr. Brenner meant her surrendering her bloodstream to be pumped full of whatever chemicals he desired to._

_I could feel Sasha's mistrustful, eyeless glare burning into the back of my lab coat as I left the cell. I knew that the mistrust and hatred was directed at Dr. Brenner, but it still tore me to see Sasha like that._

 

_I was engulfed by another memory. I was still seeing through Dr. Brenner's eyes as I trekked through an alien jungle, along with a party of other agents. I realized that the jungle was the same one that I, Sasha, Mike, Dustin and Lucas had travelled through yesterday._

_One of my agents walked before me, a tall, ball muscular middle aged man named Sean Jackson. Agent Jackson would clear a path through especially thick clumps of the alien foliage that we encountered barring our path by means of a machete. We moved at a trundling plod, as we had to wait for the botanists and entomologists in the group who were taking samples and specimens of the variety of plants, fungi and insects that we encountered as we traveled, for further study once we reached the destination._

_Suddenly, there was a panicked yell for help from the back. One agent near the back, Agent Ortiz was struggling wildly to escape from where he stood. I realized his foot was caught in something, some sort of snare. There were murmurs of surprise and confusion as Ortiz struggled to free his foot from the trap of what seemed to be woven roots._

_"Get me out of this thing!" he yelled, triggering the group into action. At the same time, something began to rise from the ground around Ortiz._

_As they lifted themselves from the ground, I saw that they were giant, mossy petals._ _This provoked even more yelling and panic from the other agents. They began unsheathing their machetes and began whacking the petals and the root contraption that held Ortiz's foot fast, but their strikes were to no avail. The petals seemed to be covered in tough bark, and the agents' machetes could do no more that nick them, as was the woven snare._

 _As the petals pointed skyward, Ortiz's terrified face peered around the petals, his wide eyes meeting mine, seeming to beg,_ Do something, Doctor. Do let this thing consume me.

_But I knew that agents were expendable. There would always more where the fallen ones had come from. I had learned that from when I heard about the massacres that the escaped demogorgon test subject had done in Hawkins Lab. She could slaughter nearly thirty agents in one killing, but there would always be a teeming army to meet her the next time she returned for another onslaught._

_Then the petals closed over Ortiz's head, sealing his capture. There was a moment of stunned silence as the agents stared at the alien plant that had just enclosed their comrade, presumably to consume him._

_"Keep moving," I ordered, breaking the spell. "The sooner we get to The Laboratory, the better. When we get there, I'll send a party back here with better equipment and see if they can break Ortiz out."_

_Seeing how the Chinese finger trap-flower didn't seem to be damaged when we encountered it told me that either that variety of predatory flower healed itself quickly, or the party Dr. Brenner had said he'd send out was unsuccessful at rescuing Ortiz._

_We continued on through the forest, passing by more strange and surreal plants, but no one else was claimed by predatory flowers, and we wittnessed a few alien animal species, but we were also lucky that none of them attacked. They either ran away at the sight of us or watched us curiously._

_Finally, Agent Jackson plowed through one last thicket, and led us into a huge clearing. Occupying the center was a tall watchtower, which loomed over the forest. I put my hands on my hips and smiled. We were here._

 

I awakened with a gasp. I was surrounded by darkness. I was submerged in warm water, but I was wearing a watertight helmet, which explained why I could breath. I then remembered that I had been put in a deprivation tank  by Dr. Brenner for a test. I, along with Sasha and the party were here because we had fled into a watchtower to escape a freak hailstorm and inadvertently delivered ourselves right into Dr. Brenner's clutches. Now, we were being treated like rats in a lab. In a way we were just that.

Then I got a rising sensation, and I clung closer to the ladder. Light flooded the water, presumably as the top hatch was opened. The ladder emerged from the water, and I felt strong arms pluck me out of the deprivation tank and set me on the catwalk, and someone else lifted the helmet off my head. I found myself looking down at the astonished face of Dr. Brenner.

"How did you..." he whispered, trailing off in disbelief. 

I felt a warm liquid trickling from my nose, and instinctively, I wiped it away with the back of my hand. It was blood.


	21. The Battle of the Cryo Lab

_Hopper's pov_

Hawkins Lab had been completely vacated. Two weeks before, Hopper had taken a team of police officers and stormed Hawkins Lab after a frantic Joyce Byers, along with her sons Will and Johnathan Byers. Joyce was very shaken up, as though she had nearly been gunned down by a squad of marines, which I learned she had. Will was in an even bigger panic, practically yelling at us to haul our asses over to Hawkins Lab and break someone named Sasha out. When I finally got the Byers family to slow down and explain things reasonably, they explained that Sasha was a demogorgon, like the monster that had terrorized Hawkins last year, except she had helped Will escape from Hawkins Lab when they invaded the woods where Cornwallis and Kerley met, while he was riding home. She and Will later broke Joyce and Johnathan out of the Lab after they had been in imprisoned by the Lab, only to have Hawkins Lab catch up with them later. Sasha had turned herself in in place of Will and his family, and was going to be used for drug experiments before she was executed. 

Hawkins Lab may have argued that I had violated the deal I made with them the year before, that they would help me and Joyce rescue Will, and in return I would stay nice and quiet for them and not try to shut them down, but if you ask me, it was more like I bent the deal. First off, I hadn't ratted them out, the Byers family had, and even though I didn't have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, I could still get in trouble for not doing my job, not to mention, it would raise flags with the other officers and my peers. Besides, I didn't value the deal I had made with Hawkins as much as they thought I had. If they were going to kill Sasha, the deal didn't mean much to me, especially since it hadn't affected me and my motives since I had helped Joyce rescue Will, which was all I needed Hawkins Lab to let me do as their part of deal. Besides, even if I did get them into trouble or otherwise run my mouth off, they seemed to be able to clear out fast. 

My footsteps echoed against the tiles of the empty, dark hallways. The beam of my flashlight danced across the white walls as I journeyed further into the building. The beam flitted over a doorway, briefly illuminating the room through the half open door. Curious, I padded towards it an pushed through the door. The room was rather small, and seemed that it had been devoted completely to keeping files when Hawkins Lab was in use. Of course, all of the file drawers were empty, and all of the labels had been taken off of them. 

I was about to check in one of the last few drawers that I hadn't yet checked that I already knew would be barren when I slipped and fell on my ass. 

"Son of a bitch!" I roared as my caboose collided unceremoniously against the floor and I tipped over on my back. 

I got to my feet again, gritting my teeth and rubbing my lower back. That fall would come back to bite me in the ass for sure when I was older, and I would have more back problems than a ninety year old. I was about to slam the drawer shut and continue my search, but something caught my eye. It was a piece of paper, a file forgotten in Hawkins Lab's scramble to leave. I picked it up. Jesus Christ, the thing was old. The paper was deeply yellowed and so old that I could feel and see the fibers of the dried pulp that the paper had been made from, like the material of a paper wasp nest. The creation date read March 22, 1947. There was a picture in black and white of a surreal-looking desert landscape, with what seemed to be some sort of forest in the background, under the title, which read: 

 _Observing a New Dimension..._  

_Sasha's pov_

I had no idea how long I was held captive in that strange laboratory compound. Judging by the time I had arrived at the watchtower, assuming it was near this lab, or whatever this place was, and that the sedative hadn't knocked me out for long, I had been at the lab for about a week. Also, neither me nor any of the party had been given access to clocks or any other time-telling device, calendars, or had seen the outside since we had been captured. It felt like forever since I had seen daylight.

During my captivity, I had become Dr. Brenner's test subject for the strange chemicals and serums that he had come up with. I was never told what the substance I was being injected with, even if I asked. So far, none of the tests had killed me, although some made me see things and otherwise made me high, or they gave me unpleasant sensations like burning pain. Some had no effect on me, and there was one that caused a temporary brainwash of all my memories. Not fun. It took the rest of the day, as I guesstimated, for the drug to wear off.

As well as making me his test subject for the chemicals he came up with, and the daily blood tests (whatever Dr. Brenner was doing with the blood he drew from me), I was subject to all sorts of other psychic tests, brain scans, x-rays and other probing. One of the first mental tests Dr. Brenner had performed on me was the deprivation tank. He had me get into some sort of white swimsuit that was fitted with a watertight helmet. I was then put in a deprivation tank with the orders to "focus on anything: a place, a person, a memory."

It hadn't worked for me. I had seen nothing but the darkness around me, not matter what I focused on. If I had telepathy, it was either dormant and I hadn't been able to activate it, or like my ability to make portals, it was stifled by some function of the Desert Dimension.

Another thing: every day, I, Will and his friends were allowed to see one another. The time limit was ten to fifteen minutes, and the meeting detainees were to sit at a conference table across from each other, with at least two armed guards present in the room. I was mildly surprised when one day(or night) one of Dr. Brenner's higher ranking agents entered my cell. After the shit I had experienced, nothing seemed to surprise me much. 

"Dustin Henderson asked to see you," he told me.

"Really? What for?" I replied.

The agent shrugged. "He just wanted to say hi or whatever. Nothing specific. Do you want to meet him?"

Another rule about this place: if one of us requested to meet one another, their guard would be send to ask the requested person if they gave consent to meet with the requester. It was one of the few liberties that this strange lab gave us. It was probably the only one at that.

I was flanked by two marine guys who lead me down the hallway to the meeting room. Both of them were taller than me by at least a head, and judging by their muscular builds, could probably pulverize my spine with one blow, and even if I didn't provoke them into doing so, Dr. Brenner could always just fry me through the shock collar, and my escorts probably had copies of the controllers to my shock collar. This place certainly wasn't slacking on its security.

One of the guards opened the door to the meeting room and I could see Dustin inside, sitting at the table. He looked up and straightened his posture as I walked in. One of my guards pulled out a chair across from Dustin and the other pushed me forcefully into the chair, as if reminding me what he could do if I decided to act up. They then left, leaving us alone in the room with the two agents who were on sentry duty.

"Hello Sasha," Dustin said.

"Hi," I crossed my arms on the table. "Did you want to see me for something?"

Dustin's ice-colored eyes flicked back and forth between the two agents who had been assigned to watch us. One yawned so long and so wide that I could see his tonsils and the other picked his teeth with a Swiss Army knife.

Dustin turned his attention back to me. "Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine, if you compensate for this," I turned my head so Dustin could see the side of my neck where countless syringes had penetrated my skin. 

Dustin's eyes widened. "What are they doing to you?" 

"What do you think? I'm a rat to them, good for nothing but drug testing," I replied sullenly.

Dustin growled. "I swear, that son of a bitch, Dr. Brenner-" 

The guard who was picking his teeth stopped and cleared his throat loudly to get our attention. When Dustin and I turned and glowered at him, the sentry shook his finger in warning at us, still holding his knife. 

"Anyways, who's your guard?" Dustin asked. "I have this guy called Gus Mitchel."

I shrugged. "I don't really have a personal guard who hangs around my cell at all times, but it would probably be Dr. Brenner, since he's always coming into my cell and doing stuff with me."

"Ah," Dustin said. "So you're the chosen one."

"The chosen- what? No! He just does tests on me!" I spluttered.

Dustin laughed, provoking me to giggle a bit. It was the first time I was that amused in a long time.

"Hey, demogorgon," the bored guard interrupted. "Wasn't your boyfriend that weird dweeb Byers, you kept having sex with, not this guy?"

Dustin and I gave him a weird look, if that's possible for me to do to do without a face. 

"Excuse me, there are children in here," I said in a rude voice.

Dustin became serious. "Lucas wanted me to say hi to you."

Then he did an odd thing. Dustin held up two fingers with his right hand, as though making a peace sign, then put his hand fingers-down on the table, as though... I realized that the strange hand signal was supposed to resemble a person. Dustin looked me dead in the face and mouthed _Lucas._

He glanced at the guards again but they weren't paying attention.

Dustin continued. "Oh, do you know who Alex Velaquez is?"

Again, Dustin made that sign for a person with his hand, and I guessed he was saying that it was Velaquez. I knew that Dustin was saying something to me and it wasn't "hi, what's up". It was something that he couldn't say in front of the guards, I knew.

I thought for a moment. I felt like I knew the name Velaquez. Then I remembered that he was the guy who had been talking to Dr. Brenner outside my cell after Will had woken me up from my vivid, macabre hallucination.

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Velaquez is Lucas's guard," Dustin added.

"Is he nice?" I asked halfheartedly, watching Dustin as he walked his right hand that symboled Lucas, across the table towards the left hand, Velaquez, using his two fingers like legs.

He exaggerated a furtive gait in the step of his right hand, as though imitating a sneaky cat burglar as it crept up to his left hand.

"Yeah, he's pretty nice, I guess. He's a bit shy, but at least he's not like those goons," Dustin said, lowering his voice and glancing at the two guards.

I watched as he reached slowly and sneakily out to me, then closed his hand into a fist, as though stealing something.

"Well, I'd be glad to trade Dr. Brenner for him," I replied, trying my best to sound engaged in small talk with Dustin, instead of keenly watching his hand signals. Fortunately, the guards seemed to buy it.

"Yeah, Lucas got lucky. Anyways, did they do the psychic test on you?" Dustin asked.

He put his hand on the table facing up, his fingers half closed. He lifted his thumb and flipped it downward in an arch, toward me as though opening a pocket knife.

"Yeah, they did. I don't have any other psychic powers as far as I know, being the pathetic little demogorgon I am. All I can do is shadow-walk, and I can't even do that while I'm here," I said, jokingly.

Dustin laughed a bit. "Well, neither do I. I guess I'm just a pathetic human too."

He pointed at my neck, at the shock collar. He reached toward his own neck and put his fist against it and twisted it back and forth, miming a screwdriver.

"Anyways, I guess I should go. Lucas wants to see you," Dustin stood up, his white lab gown swishing around him.

"Guards, I request to return to my designated cell," Dustin said, and I stifled a giggle at his overly elaborate choice of words.

The guard who was picking his teeth put down his Swiss Army knife and belched.

"Access denied," then, "just kidding!" he brayed a laugh. "Houston, you're on break next. Why don't you take this nerd back to his... 'designated cell'."

"I prefer budding scientist!" Dustin protested as he was led out.

"Oh, and apparently Lucas wants to see this demon-thing, whatever it is. Better talk to his guard about that," added the Swiss Army knife guy.

I bit back a smartass retort about being called a demon-thing. Admittedly, it was kinda true.

As I waited, I slouched forward with my head propped up on my hand, thinking about what Dustin had told me. From what his hand signals and miming had said, Alex Velaquez was the guard assigned to Lucas's cell. When Velaquez had come into his cell, Lucas had managed to swipe his pocket knife, and was planning to either cut off my shock collar or just destroy the unit on it, leaving me free to rampage the place.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by the lock on the door clicking, then opening. Lucas stepped in ahead of Velaquez.

"Sasha!" he said happily, a toothy grin spreading across his face.

I stood up as Lucas spread his arms for a hug. At that moment, I noticed a hand-sized slit in the left side of his lab gown, by his waist. Just before we embraced in a hug, he turned towards the wall to the right and discreetly reached into the slit. I wrapped my arms around him, just under his arms. I felt his left arm curl around my neck, along with his right. Then something cold and metallic brushed against my neck, and my collar was roughly jiggled.

Neither the guard who had been picking his teeth or Agent Valequez was watching as me and Lucas embraced for just a bit too long, as Lucas tampered with my shock collar with the swiped pocket knife. Just at that moment, Valequez had his back turned to us and was walking toward the opposite wall. The agent who had been picking his teeth had stopped, and was looking down as he cleaned off the blade.

I felt a small click within the mechanism of my collar. Lucas jiggled the knife even more vigorously, stabbing it further into the collar. He gave a final crank of his arm and the computer part of the shock collar gave a splitting crunch. Something fell off my collar and cracked on the floor, and the exposed, severed wires in the mechanism sizzled and sparked for a few moments, before the electricity died off. I was free.

Neither of the agents had been looking at us, but we had gotten their attention. Valequez spun around and gaped at us in surprise. The other agent dropped his knife and whipped his taser out of his belt. I tensed, ready to dart out of the way when he fired at me.

Suddenly, two gunshots exploded off in rapid succession, leaving my eardrums ringing. The agent froze. The taser fell from his hand and clattered loudly across the ground, then his eyes rolled all the way back in his head, exposing the whites and he crumpled to the ground, a bullet wound right on his temple. The wall behind him was spattered with blood and fragments of something grey- brain matter.

Lucas and I slowly turned our heads in unison to look at Valequez. He was still pointing his pistol at the dead agent.

"We don't have much time," he said gruffly.

Valequez fired a shot at the security camera, annihilating it in a burst of metal scraps and sparks. He then clawed off the dead guard's bulletproof vest and tossed it to Lucas, gesturing for him to put it on. He then swiped his dead colleague's automatic rifle and tossed it to me, stuffing his pockets with bullets.

"You know how to use that?" he asked me.

I did. Since the Hawkins Lab baddies had attempted peppering me with their automatic rifles and other firearms that were otherwise useless against me ever since I had started my killing sprees at Hawkins Lab, I decided I might as well get acquainted with their means of combat. Sometimes after a killing spree, I would take the firearms of my victims and bring them back to the Upside Down with me for further experimentation. After accidentally shooting myself in the face once or twice(or maybe twenty times), I taught myself how they worked and how to use them.

Valequez barged out of the meeting room in front of us. Already, marines were charging down the hall from both directions, their firearms drawn. I leaped in front of Valequez, since my entire body was immune to gunshots, whereas he, wearing a bulletproof vest, was only protected in his torso area.

I switched the safety off the stolen automatic rifle and unleashed an onslaught of rapid fire on the first wave of marines, just as they raised their guns. The deafening sound of rapid fire filled the hallways, used bullet shells flying in all directions. The rifle's kick was so intense that my entire body shook.

I heard more rapid fire from behind me as Valequez faced the other squad of marines. Even Lucas had stolen the Swiss Army knife guy's taser and was using that as his weapon of combat. It was actually helpful to Valequez, since the marine who was being tasered was unable to shoot, and Valequez could dispose of the attacker with minimal danger to himself or Lucas.

I was not careful about getting shot. I boldly stood before the marines from the left side of the hall, firing viciously into their midst, my body completely exposed to the bullets, not that it mattered of course. In under thirty seconds, all of the marines that I faced were dead.

I turned and helped Valequez and Lucas finish off their remaining enemies. They we pillaged everything that might be useful in our grand jailbreak- bulletproof helmets for Lucas and Valequez, more bullets, mace, tear gas, and of course tasers. Valequez discovered a pair of wire cutters among the plunder, and used it to mutilate my shock collar off, attacking the weak section where the destroyed unit had been.

“Let’s go get the others,” Valequez said, after he had cut my collar off and we had gathered our plunder from the dead marines. 

Valequez lead Lucas and I back down the hallway, to where our cells were located. We encountered a few other agents on our way, but Valequez and I quickly disposed of them. 

Finally we reached a door labeled ‘detainment’. I recognized that as the section of the Lab where our cells were located, lined up on either side of the aisle. The agents who were guarding the cells occupied by the others and I looked up in surprise, certainly not expecting a demogorgon with an automatic rifle, a rebel agent and a kid in a lab gown and bulletproof armor burst through the door and start shooting at them. It was the last thing they saw. In seconds, the room had been cleared. 

I rushed ahead of Lucas and Valequez, my focus zeroing in on the cell labeled 123. I grabbed the ID card from the belt of Will’s guard, who was sprawled in a pool of his own blood and brain matter. I swiped the card without thinking over the scanner and dropped it on the floor as soon as I heard the lock click open, then burst into the cell.

Will leaped up in surprise, his dark brown eyes wide. I dropped my gun, ignoring it as it clattered on the floor.

“S-Sasha?” he said, after a moment of astonished hesitation.

Then we rushed at each other. I grabbed Will, hugging him tightly and he wrapped his arms around me, crushing me in an anaconda hug. 

We stayed like that for a long time, then our arms got tired, and we let go of each other. 

“I missed you,” I said, running my claws through Will’s hair. 

Will lifted his head and kissed me, hooking his arms behind my neck and pulling me closer, and I embraced him too. 

“That was too damn long,” he whispered, caressing the side of my face. 

“Hey guys, get a move on unless you want to stay in this hellhole!” I sighed in annoyance at the familiar, annoying voice of Mike Wheeler.

I put my arm around Will’s shoulder and we strode out of the cell. By then, both Dustin and Mike were striping their guards’ bulletproof vests off and putting it on, and raiding their ammo and arms supply. 

“Alright, let’s get out of here! Move, move!” Valequez shouted as voices faded into distinction near the opposite end of the detainment section. 

We stampeded out the door, which we had left sitting wide open. We had barely set foot in the hallway when a gunshot rang off from down the hall, and a bullet zipped past my face. Then Valequez’s scream of pain filled the corridor. His gun crashed to the ground and he held his left hand over right shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers and trickled down his arm. 

Like a bunch of scared meerkats, our heads swiveled simultaneously in the direction of the gunshot. Blocking the hallway ominously, in all appearances Jack Torrance from The Shining, except wielding a pistol instead of a roque mallet and wearing a lab coat, was Dr. Brenner. 

Taking advantage of our double take, he raised his pistol and fired five more times, each shot striking the firearm of each of the party and I were holding, either knocking it out of our loose hands or scaring us into dropping the weapon.

“No one move,” Brenner said, his voice arrogant and cool. “Or you all die.”

His icy gaze rested on me. “That goes for you especially,  Sasha . I have special plans for you.”

I resisted the urge to shrink away from him as he began to slowly stride forward, reaching down to grab his taser with his free hand. 

“You have been one naughty monster,” the vile man continued. “Maybe I’ve been a bit too generous by sparing you this long. You must be executed, however I still need you preserved, to study your species. Since you seem to dislike heat, how does liquid nitrogen sound?”

I jumped at the sound of gunfire. Dr. Brenner doubled over, bellowing in pain and clamping a hand over his stomach. When he had been focusing on me, Will had managed to sneakily swipe a dropped pistol and shoot Dr. Brenner in the gun.

His arm was still outstretched, and he was shaking like a leaf. Not in fear, I realized, but in a raw, primordial paroxysm of fury. His face contorted, transforming his normally cute, non-violent expression into that of a raging demon.

“No,” Will snarled, his voice mutated. It sounded like a grizzly bear had learned to speak English. “You will be the one to die.”

He fired again, his second shot striking Dr. Brenner in the gut again, causing him to whimper, baring his teeth in pain and coughing up blood.

“I hope that hurts like a motherfucking bitch,” Will said, his voice sounding like Darth Vader as a thirteen year old. “I hope when you go to hell, you boil forever in a cauldron of your own blood, and you scream in agony and beg for your life, like everyone you’ve killed in cold blood. Like Sasha, when you pumped random drugs into her just to see what would happen like she was some kind of rat.”

With that, Will sauntered up to me, kissed me briefly in a way that was more possessive and jealous than affectionate, then promptly walked up to Dr. Brenner and kicked him hard in the chest, murmuring curses in mingled English and Russian that he had picked up from me. 

Dr. Brenner jerked backward with a groan. With a weak, shaky hand, he reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a syringe filled with a translucent liquid. At first, I thought he was stupid enough to try to attack Will with it, but then he injected himself with it. 

Dr. Brenner dropped the needle. His breath came in hoarse, bestial grunts and his eyes glittered with madness. 

“It doesn’t matter if I die or live,” Dr. Brenner hissed. “A bomb will go off in five minutes, and if you think you can make it out alive, you’re delusional.”

Before he could react, Dr. Brenner leaped to his feet and slapped Will in the face so hard that he went flying sideways, colliding hard with the wall, then he took off running down the hallway, dripping a trail of blood. White-hot rage erupted within me, and I sped off after Dr. Brenner with an alien screech. 

For an old man that had been shot twice in the gut, Dr. Brenner was fast, but then he had just pumped opioids or whatever had been in that needle into himself. I was gaining on him, until suddenly he slammed to a halt in front of a door, swiped his ID card over the scanner, then dropped his card and ran into the room, slamming the door in my face. I picked up his now blood-covered card and read the room label. It read: Cryo Lab. The skin at the back of my neck crawled. I knew what Brenner was going to do. I unlocked the door and stepped in.

A wave of chilly, unnaturally frosty air rushed out to meet me. The lighting in the room was dimmer too, a mellower blue tone than the harsh florescent lights in my cell. I might have somewhat liked the room... if I weren't surrounded by countless vials, tubes, bottles, freezers and tanks of nitrogen. It was so cold in the cryo lab that I could see my breath billowing out in a cloud of frost whenever I exhaled. I could see a trail of dark blood splotches leading down the main walkway, betraying the direction that Dr. Brenner had traveled in. As I followed his trail of blood, it was clear that he hadn't done anything to cover his trail. Opioids, pain and insanity had muddled his brain, so he had bulldozed his way through the lab, knocking tables askew, and knocking the smaller ones over, bumping into shelves and observation tables and knocking stuff all over the floor. At one point, it appeared that he had carelessly knocked over a box of solid nitrogen, as there were large chunks of broken snowy-white ice scattered all over the floor. I stepped carefully over that and continued on. 

I followed Brenner's blood trail over to the far side of the lab, and up a metal staircase that was hugging up against the wall. I ran up the stairs, ignoring the loud clang of my hind claws on the metal. The staircase ended and plateaued into a catwalk once it was towering a good couple meters above the rest of the lab, giving me a good view over the rest of the cryo lab. I hadn't come to enjoy the view of tanks of liquid nitrogen though, and I bolted down the catwalk without a second glance. 

The blood trail lead down a smaller catwalk that branched out over a huge tank of liquid nitrogen. It was wider across than the bathroom in Mike's basement, and it came up to about a meter below the catwalk. I know that this place was part of some super big undercover lab network, but why the fuck did they need eight foot tall nitrogen tanks?

Confused, I followed the blood trail to the end of the catwalk, where it had ended. The gate on the the end of the catwalk that prevented dipshit scientists from slipping and meeting a nitrogen-y end by falling in the tank, which was currently open, had been thrown wide open, posing a serious threat to said dipshit scientists. Had Dr. Brenner become so confused and maddened that he jumped in the tank himself? the blood trail didn't seem to go further down the main catwalk. 

"You may be quite the unique specimen, but you are really, _really_ easy to trick."

I spun around at the sound of Dr. Brenner's voice. His blood-stained lab coat flashed as he jumped down onto the catwalk. I suddenly noticed a small observation platform that had been positioned about my height above the catwalk, which was what Dr. Brenner had been standing on, waiting for me to wander like a hunting beagle down the trail of his own blood, right to the very edge of the catwalk, above the nitrogen tank. I could feel the chill from the liquid nitrogen below me wafting skyward, billowing over me. 

Usually I didn’t mind the cold. I’d take a cold winter chill over the arid, tropical heat of day, the surreal dimension that I was in right now any day. But this wasn’t the type of cold that would make you comfortable in the stifling heat. It was the type of cold that would turn you into snowflakes upon contact. Judging by the predatory, sadistic gleam in Dr. Brenner’s eyes, he planned to do just that to me. He was both taller and heavier than me, and if he wanted to knock me into the nitrogen tank, there was no way for me to physically stand up to him, and even if I could, he could just taser me and then push me in once he had me subdued.

  
I swallowed my terror and forced myself to face him defiantly.

  
“You may be a unique scientist, but you disgust me,” I retorted.

  
Dr. Brenner brayed a sadistic laugh, beginning to advance slowly but menacingly toward me. A trickle of blood made its way from the corner of his mouth to his coat collar. “Is that so? Well, don’t bother wasting your witty, brattish comments on me, little demogorgon. Say your last words, because you don’t have long to live.”

With that, Dr. Brenner began to sprint down the catwalk, barreling straight towards me.

  
I balled my fists, facing the deranged scientist as he closed in on me.

  
“Alright. Here’s my last words:... YIPPEE KI YAY MOTHERFUCKER!”  
I spun around and bolted to the very end of the catwalk and jumped. 


	22. The Great Escape

_Sasha’s pov_

For a second I felt like I was flying, as I seemed to hover over the open nitrogen tank, the cold, frosty air hissing up at me. My arms and claws were outstretched as I reached for the tank lid, which was perpendicular to the ground and standing straight up and down on its hinges. The world seemed to move in slow motion as I hurtled forward. For a moment, I wondered if I had misjudged, if I would be sent plunging into the tank after Dr. Brenner, who had careened off the catwalk when he had barreled down on me, unable to slow down. 

Then my hands struck the edge of the lid and I clamped down instantly. Pain shot through me as my body swung forward and slammed into the lid. 

Right after, I heard a bellow of terror that was cut short by a splash and a hiss. As I flung myself over the lid, I caught a glimpse of Dr. Brenner as he sank into the nitrogen. His white, blood-covered lab coat had been frozen in position, spread out at his sides as it had been when he had fallen in. The color had been leeched from his skin, and his eyes were wide with terror, frozen open, along with his mouth that gaped with a silenced death cry. 

The lid slammed shut beneath me, causing me to jolt violently. I lay spread-eagle on it, limp with terror, shivers of mortal fear racking my body. I forced myself into a sitting position. If Dr. Brenner had told the truth about the time bomb, there wasn’t much time to escape. 

I tentatively pushed myself off the edge of the tank, but once I hit the ground, my legs gave way beneath me as though they were cooked spaghetti and I collapsed, leaning against the tank. 

The cryo lab door, which I had left half open, swung wide and hit the wall with a bang as Will stampeded into the lab, leading the others. 

He bolted down the main walkway, indifferent to the solid nitrogen chunks that he merely kicked out of his way as he sprinted towards me. 

With surprising strength, Will lifted me onto my feet and slammed me into the side of the tank. 

“Are you crazy?!” he screamed in my face, on the verge of tears. “You could have  died  Sasha! Just because you’re bulletproof doesn’t mean you’re immortal! Do you think I could have handled it if you just died on me? Was killing Dr. Brenner worth the risk?”

Before I could reply, Will dropped me on my feet and snatched me in another crushing hug, sobbing into my chest. I found my feet and embraced him comfortingly, stroking his hair and soothing him. 

“Guys,” Valequez caught up to us. “Brenner wasn’t lying about the time bomb. Notice how we didn’t encounter any more marines? They’ve all fled the lab. Brenner wants to make sure there’s no chance any of you get out alive, an judging by when Brenner started the clock, we barely have three minutes to get out before the place blows.” 

“Then let’s hurry up and get out of here,” Mike said, starting towards the door.

“Wait. The exit’s too far away to reach in time. We’ll have to find another way,” Valequez stopped him.

“Can’t we just, like, disable the bomb or something?” Mike argued.

“Do you or one of your friends know how to disable a time bomb? ‘Cuz I don’t,” Valequez retorted.

There was a moment of awkward silence. 

“Don’t look at me!” Dustin said, as he obviously didn’t know how to disable a bomb, for all the science lore he had. 

An idea took root in my mind. “Indiana Jones...” I murmured, remembering aloud.

Everyone froze and stared at me.

Will lifted his head and looked at me like I was some sort of alien. “ Excuse me?”

I explained. “I snuck into a drive-in movie theater a couple months ago, and Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade was playing. Remember that scene when he survived a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator? What if we did that?”

Valequez opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. 

“Before you give me a lecture about how nuclear physics work, I understand that it was just a movie, and you couldn’t survive a nuke by getting in a refrigerator, but with a time bomb versus a nuke, you have more of a chance to survive it, and it’s the best we’ve got, unless you have a better idea.”

Valequez closed his mouth, thinking better of said physics lecture. “Fine, but we need to hurry. There’s a rec. room just down the hallway, and it has a refrigerator that should hold all of us, and won’t turn us into popsicles, unlike these ones.”

Valequez kicked one of the nitrogen freezers. 

With that, he took off out of the cryo lab and down the hallway, leading the rest of us. He slammed to a halt by a door labeled ‘Rec. Room’, unlocked it and let us in. I spied a large, metal refrigerator inside a large kitchenette, located in the far corner of the room, near a couch and La-Z-boy chairs. 

We sprinted over to the refrigerator and instantly fell upon it, ripping the door open and flinging all the contents out, including the racks they sat on. I jumped as something long and green came flying out at me, only to realize it was a cucumber. 

“Go, go, go! We’ve got less than a minute before the bomb goes off,” Valequez hurried us, and we all stuffed ourselves into the now empty refrigerator. 

The chill bit into my skin as I was squashed between Will and the refrigerator corner, but I barely noticed. 

I heard Valequez shut the door, and we were plunged into darkness. It was completely silent, except for the sounds of cloth rustling against skin as the inhabitants of the refrigerator shifted and moved. I could feel Will’s pounding heartbeat throbbing against my chest. In the darkness, he laced his fingers with mine and squeezed my hand, either in reassurance, or to comfort himself. Or both.

Suddenly, a loud _KA-BOOM_ sounded from somewhere inside the lab, followed by a muffled roar. All of a sudden, I got the sensation that I was shooting upward, so fast that I felt like I had left all my internal organs behind. Groping in the darkness, I wrapped my arms around Will and hugged him tightly. The feeling of shooting upwards disappeared soon, and was replaced by a falling sensation. A jolt racked my body, and I felt myself thrown against the ceiling of the refrigerator as it hit the ground. On the second bounce, the door was jarred open, spilling us across the ground. 

I shook my head to clear the dizziness as I tumbled across the ground. Quickly, I got to my feet to help the others, and just as I stood, pain ripped through my back as something struck me hard across the back and continued to fly off in whatever direction it was going in. I stumbled, letting out a stream of Russian curses. Despite the pain, I stood up and started towards Will, who had landed the closest to me. He sat up and groaned as i approached, rubbing his head. 

He looked up. "It actually worked. We survived."

"We certainly did."

I crouched down next to him, and we hugged each other tightly.

_Mike's pov_   

"What the hell Sasha?!" 

My head snapped up at the sound of Will's outcry as he recoiled away from Sasha, who he had been hugging only a second before. He had his hands raised and was looking down at them with an expression of pure horror, and I couldn't blame him. From finger tips to his wrist, his hands had been stained bright crimson, as though he had thought it would be a great idea to stick his hands in a pot of red Maori war paint. Only it wasn't red Maori war paint. It was Sasha's blood.

Sasha stared at Will's hands too with a look of pure surprise and shock on her face, if that was possible for a demogorgon. 

"I..." she began, but never finished, as she abruptly keeled over and collapsed on her face, knocked out cold. 

That was when I saw the source of the "Maori war paint" on Will's hands and his horror, as well as Sasha's sparking out: just under her shoulder blades, blood was pouring in curtains out of a deep gash. It was so deep, I could see slight glints of white bone around the steady stream of blood that was forming a growing puddle underneath the unconscious demogorgon.  

For a moment, the world seemed to freeze up as everyone gawked at her, stunned and horrified. The silence was broken by Valequez sprinting over the ruins of the lab towards Sasha. Dustin, Lucas and I followed close behind and gathered around our new friend, watching anxiously as he lifted Sasha's upper body off the ground, then had Will prop her up so that her blood flow would be going to her stomach and legs, reducing the blood that was streaming out of her back. 

Valequez crouched down so that he was level with Sasha and slapped her face lightly. "Hey, can you hear me?"

Sasha groaned and mumbled something in Russian.

Valequez took that as a yes. "Sasha, you have been wounded very badly, by a piece of shrapnel from the looks of it. I'm going to have to stitch your would shut, or you'll bleed to death."

Will sobbed slightly and hugged Sasha's limp body, keeping his arm away from the gash on her back.

Sasha made a strange, pathetic sounding noise of disdain. "Ah fuck. I hate needles."

She passed out again.

Valequez got to work. We soon learned that the former agent kept a small first aid kit with him when he opened up a compartment on the side of his belt, allowing gauze, first aid cream, various sizes of band aids and other first aid equipment spill out onto the dusty ground. Naturally, we all crowded in closer like a curious science class watching the teacher giving a demo on how to dissect a frog. 

"Hey, get back! He needs space to work," Will shooed us away, positioning himself protectively over Sasha.

To make the job easier for Will, Valequez placed a chunk of concrete under Sasha's chest, then took off his vest and placed it over the rock so that she could rest confortably over it. After looking around undecidedly for a moment, Valequez tore a strip of fabric off his pant leg and used it to clear away as much of the blood around Sasha's wound as he could, while Will did his best to hold it closed so that the blood wouldn't keep pouring out. After that was done, Valequez fished out a syringe and a tiny bottle of morphine and filled the syringe with the pain-killing narcotic before injecting it near the laceration. He then got a needle and thread ready and motioned for us to look away while he performed the operation. 

I had seen my fair share of horror movies, containing much worse than a deep laceration, but somehow its just different when the gore happens in real life, and I succumbed to my inner faint-heartedness and looked away without hesitation, as did Lucas and Dustin. 

The stitching seemed to take forever, and judging by what I could hear from Will, who was lucky enough to be assisting Valequez, it was pretty damn ghastly. 

"It's over now. You can look," Valequez finally said.

We turned around to see that the wound on Sasha's back was now closed and merely trickled blood, instead of pouring like Niagara Falls, held shut with firm black stitches. Will however, did not look so good. He was pale as a ghost and the expression on his face was that of someone who had been forced to watch Pennywise performing at a strip club. He looked like he was about to projectile vomit on us all. To complete the process, Valequez gave her another injection, this time with antibiotics, then proceeded to wrap gauze around Sasha's higher midsection, securely covering her newly stitched wounds to prevent any chance of the stitches opening or getting infected. Then, he and and Will ventured into the nearby forest, which surrounded a large area of unfamiliar, cleared land that had once contained the lab compound. After searching for a while, they found a small stream and washed the blood off their hands.

By nightfall, we had salvaged an impressive inventory of supplies, seeing how the explosion had leveled almost the entire lab. From the looks of it, we had Indiana Jones-ed our way out of the time bomb explosion during the late afternoon and spent the rest of the day searching the ruins for any supplies that we might need, especially the small section that was partly unharmed by the explosion. Will had stayed with Sasha the whole time while we hunted for supplies, and Valequez was working nearby, to make sure nothing happened to them when no one was around to see and help. 

When night had fallen and it was too dark to keep searching, Valequez had started a fire with a lighter he had found and the uniform of a casualty that had been discovered among the ruins, and we were feeding it with large chunks of wood that we found in the woods. Our camp for the night was in a hollow, in the middle of a ring of cement chunks that we had arranged in a circle for shelter. 

Of all the supplies we had salvaged,we so far hadn’t found any other clothes, so we were suck with our lab gowns that we had been forced to put on when Dr. Brenner and his stooges had captured us, and had to crowd around the fire for warmth, since the night turned out to be quite chilly.

Will was lying on his side, on the dead marine’s jacket, and using his bulletproof vest as a pillow. He had his arms tightly around a still unconscious Sasha, his body curled in a protective way around her and his head resting on the side of her neck. Every now and then, she would drift in and out of consciousness, mostly just stirring and groaning, sometimes mumbling stuff in Russian or gibberish, but when she became conscious enough to be aware that Will was the one who was embracing her, she would would murmur stuff that I couldn’t hear, but it made Will smile, and he would tell her that he loved her and wasn’t going to let her die. He would hug her tighter and kiss her on her side face petal, or would lace his fingers with hers and hold her hand, and she might gently squeeze his hand, if she was still awake. 

I wished that El was still around. Not a day passed that I didn’t wish she was still with me. The last I had seen of her was when she had said goodbye to me, and disappeared in a column of ash, after killing one of Sasha’s kind to save Hawkins. Later that night, when I was getting interrogated by Hawkins Lab, I could have sworn that I had seen her peering in my living room window. I thought that it was just my imagination, but I had a suspicion that it wasn’t. The worst part was, I knew El was out there somewhere, but she was intentionally staying away from me. Sasha, on the other hand, may have bled to death if she had been left untreated for another few minutes, and she was barely conscious, as well as the fact that she and Will made a terrible couple, but at least he still had her.

I looked away and stared into the fire, watching the eternally dancing russet and golden flames. 

“I’ll take the first shift,” Valequez announced, grabbing my attention. 

“So will I,” Will volunteered, sitting up and resting Sasha’s head and shoulders in his lap, stroking the top of her head slowly. 

I yawned and lay down on a half burnt cot sheet that I had found in the wreckage, and I saw Lucas and Dustin do the same. The day’s insanity had taken its toll on me, and I felt as though I couldn’t hold my eyes open a second longer. Despite how uncomfortable my sleeping situation was, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as I lay down.

I was shot like a cannonball back through every layer of sleep I had submerged myself in by a yell of alarm from Valequez, followed by a round of gunshots.

I leaped up, my heart racing. Will was crouching over Sasha, who was stirring uneasily, firing erratically into the darkness beyond the fire with a machine gun. I spun around at the sound of Lucas’s girly terror-scream. As Lucas scrambled away from the unseen threat, I saw a flash of metallic, dark purple glitter briefly in the darkness. I grabbed the nearest weapon, which happened to be an automatic gun, but it wasn’t large. 

Dustin grabbed a nearby machete, then tore off a part of the sheet that he was sleeping on, and used it as a wick by wrapping it around the weapon and using it as a torch. He yelled a surreal sounding war cry as he swung the torch/machete wildly around in the darkness. For a millisecond, his makeshift torch lit up another dark purplish form, and I wasted no time opening fire on it. That provoked an alien-sounding screech of pain, then a raucous, angry chattering noise.

I was distracted by the sound of a banshee-like scream from Will. Still standing protectively over his comatose lover, he fired wildly at an attacker in the darkness. Suddenly, a non-anthropomorphic 

a creature roughly the size of a leopard lunged out of the darkness at him with a warlike cry, flying at Will in a flash of burnished dark purple.

Will responded with and equally ear splitting war cry, a sound so bloodcurdling and hellish that I didn’t think it was possible for someone who was usually so quiet and shy. He then thrust the machine gun into the maw of his impending attacker and fired a round. The alien gave a gurgling squeal, then tumbled to the ground, twitching once or twice before going still. I got a good look at the creature. It was so dark that it was near black, at least in some lights, but the strong armor plates that covered its body glinted deep purple. All of its feet bore velociraptor-like talons, and its forefeet looked anthropomorphic, almost handlike. It had two long tails, which were segmented with armor plates like two giant purple centipedes. The creature's face resembled that of a dragon's, and its pupiless eyes that rested deep in their sockets were a light, electric purple color.  

Right then, Sasha woke up, somewhere over halfway, but not completely. 

“Will? What’s happening?” she asked, her voice slurred with grogginess.

The madman-like expression on Will’s face softened to an affectionate one, and he got down on his knees next to Sasha, half scooping up her top section and cuddling her up against him. 

“We’re under attack, darling,” he said so gently that it sounded like he was just informing her that it was raining outside, from the safety of a cozy, warm bedroom or living room. “But I won’t let any of the monsters get you.”

With that, Will gave Sasha a hug and kissed her on top of the head as she began to cycle in and out of wakefulness and unconsciousness. If Will had not been looking down at Sasha at that moment, he would have seen the attack that was coming from his front. 

Another metallic purple alien, seizing the moment of Will’s getting distracted, bounded out of the darkness on the other side of the camp, but cleared the fire in one bound and then body slammed Will, and he was knocked backward and away from Sasha with a scream of terror. The alien then pounced on him, subduing Will as he tried to punch, kick and scratch his way free, screaming and cursing the whole time. 

Then, instead of killing and eating him on the spot, the alien grabbed Will and held him close to its body, like he was a baby koala that was supposed to cling to the intruder’s, now abducter’s belly for dear life as it leaped through the trees. 

However, it didn’t leaped through the trees. The alien stood up on two feet and took off running into the darkness. 

I screamed Will’s name, and he called back to me as I proceeded to chase after him into the darkness, trying my best not to fall and break my ankle on the rubble. 

Of course, I then tripped on a piece of disfigured iron skeleton and face planted in the dirt. I stood up, and sensed that I was covered in dirt, and I could feel blood trickling down my knee. I was about to continue to give chase, but then I realized that there was no point. Will’s cries for help got fainter by the second, and even if it was possible to catch up with then without breaking all my bones crossing the rubble, and find them in the darkness, what could I do to defend myself and him? During my scramble, I had dropped my gun and there was no way I could find it in this darkness. The best I could do was help protect the remaining members of the party, Valequez, and Sasha.

I returned to find that the aliens had pressed closer and were attacking with more vigor. It was taking all of Dustin and Lucas’s strength, teamwork abilities and bravery to keep two malicious aliens from overtaking their efforts and dragging them off to god knows where, presumably the same place that Will was being taken. 

Valequez was having his struggles too. A particularly large and strong alien had engaged him in contact, and the rebel marine had run out of rounds in his firearm, not that the bullets had made much of a difference against the hard armor that covered the alien’s body. Being unable to get away from his rival long enough to reload his weapon, Valequez resorted to using the butt of his gun to beat the alien over the head as hard as he could, which seemed to work better that just shooting it, to be fair, but he was loosing fast. On top of that, Sasha was awake, and looking around in groggy confusion, unaware that an alien was sneaking up behind her. 

“Sasha! Behind you!” I warned. 

She seemed to snap out of her daze, spinning around and spying the impending creature, which snarled balefully at her. In return, she opened her face threateningly at it and gave the most earsplitting banshee screech I had ever heard, and probably ever would hear. I’m not sure how I survived that with my eardrums intact, but it was clear that the alien didn’t like it at all either, and scrambled away with a pathetic sounding squall, giving Sasha enough time to grab a machine gun and open fire like a terrorist in a mall. While Sasha joined Valequez to help him drive off his attacker, I went over to assist Lucas and Dustin. Now that there were three of us, we began to slowly but surely make a comeback, gradually able to beat back the aliens enough that we could do more than just hold our own against them. That is, until things went horribly wrong of course. 

From the other side of the camp fire, the alien Valequez and Sasha were fighting managed to dodge a bludgeoning from the butt of the Valequez’s firearm and slashed at the Marine as it body slammed him backwards. Since he had taken off his bulletproof vest earlier to prop Sasha up on while he gave her stitches, the only thing between his skin and the alien’s talons was his shirt, which it ripped through easily. He gave a scream which would have put a rabid cougar to shame, suggesting that the slash had broken the skin too. As he toppled backwards, Valequez stumbled on a chunk of wood jutting out from the fire, throwing embers everywhere. Sasha was quick to jump to her comrade’s aid, and charged the alien with a machete, throwing it off Valequez and into the fire.  The alien gave a shriek of pain as more embers went spewing out of the fire like an active volcano in its wake. Struggling and writing, it scrambled out of the fire and bolted away into the darkness. 

However, Lucas and Dustin were not as lucky as Valequez. As expected, they jumped and spun around to face the source of the screaming and the fireworks, momentarily distracted from their own enemies. 

I opened my mouth to scream a warning to them, but it was too late. With shrieks of triumph, both of the aliens pounced on Lucas and Dustin. Dustin's torch was knocked out of his hand, and he screamed and kicked like a rabbit in a trap beneath the monster. Lucas, who was actually thinking a little bit straight at that moment, only shrieked like a girl, but then he picked up a chunk of concrete and pounded the alien's armored head with it. For a moment, I thought he had a chance of escaping as the alien screeched and reared back in pain, but then it slammed Lucas down against the ground and subdued him properly. 

The alien that had trapped Dustin made a strange clicking noise to its partner, who made a small chattering sound in reply. I wasn't sure what that was supposed to be, but I'm sure it went along the lines of "hey, wouldn't it be fun if we kidnap this human?" and, "sure, and I'll abduct this human too!" since a second later, they snatched up both Lucas and Dustin and took off into the darkness, ignoring their screams of fear, fading fast as they put distance between us. Then silence.

Sasha was frozen still beside a shocked Valequez, staring into the darkness, where Lucas, Dustin and Will had disappeared with their abducters. I hesitated, then walked up to her. She didn't look at me, or otherwise acknowledge me. 

After a while she spoke, in the smallest, meekest voice I had ever heard Sasha talk in. "We saw them get taken, but we didn't see them get killed..."

 


End file.
